- Downbeat

Transcription

- Downbeat

SEPTEMBER 2015
DOWNBEAT.COM
U.K. £4.00
September 2015
VOLUME 82 / NUMBER 9
President
Kevin Maher
Publisher
Frank Alkyer
Editor
Associate Editor
Contributing Editor
Art Director
Contributing Designer
Circulation Manager
Assistant to the Publisher
Bookkeeper
Bookkeeper Emeritus
Editorial Assistant
Bobby Reed
Brian Zimmerman
Ed Enright
LoriAnne Nelson
ĺDQHWDÎXQWRY£
Kevin R. Maher
Sue Mahal
Evelyn Oakes
Margaret Stevens
Stephen Hall
ADVERTISING SALES
Record Companies & Schools
Jennifer Ruban-Gentile
630-941-2030
[email protected]
Musical Instruments & East Coast Schools
Ritche Deraney
201-445-6260
[email protected]
Classified Advertising Sales
Pete Fenech
630-941-2030
[email protected]
OFFICES
102 N. Haven Road, Elmhurst, IL 60126–2970
630-941-2030 / Fax: 630-941-3210
http://downbeat.com
[email protected]
CUSTOMER SERVICE
877-904-5299 / [email protected]
CONTRIBUTORS
Senior Contributors:
Michael Bourne, Aaron Cohen, Howard Mandel, John McDonough
Atlanta: Jon Ross; Austin: Kevin Whitehead; Boston: Fred Bouchard, FrankJohn Hadley; Chicago: John Corbett, Alain Drouot, Michael Jackson, Peter
Margasak, Bill Meyer, Mitch Myers, Paul Natkin, Howard Reich; Denver: Norman
Provizer; Indiana: Mark Sheldon; Iowa: Will Smith; Los Angeles: Earl Gibson,
Todd Jenkins, Kirk Silsbee, Chris Walker, Joe Woodard; Michigan: John Ephland;
Minneapolis: Robin James; Nashville: Bob Doerschuk; New Orleans: Erika
Goldring, David Kunian, Jennifer Odell; New York: Alan Bergman, Herb Boyd,
Bill Douthart, Ira Gitler, Eugene Gologursky, Norm Harris, D.D. Jackson, Jimmy
Katz, Jim Macnie, Ken Micallef, Dan Ouellette, Ted Panken, Richard Seidel, Tom
Staudter, Jack Vartoogian, Michael Weintrob; North Carolina: Robin Tolleson;
Philadelphia: David Adler, Shaun Brady, Eric Fine; San Francisco: Mars Breslow,
Forrest Bryant, Clayton Call, Yoshi Kato; Seattle: Paul de Barros; Tampa Bay:
Philip Booth; Washington, D.C.: Willard Jenkins, John Murph, Michael
Wilderman; Belgium: Jos Knaepen; Canada: Greg Buium, James Hale, Diane
Moon; Denmark: Jan Persson; France: Jean Szlamowicz; Germany: Detlev
Schilke, Hyou Vielz; Great Britain: Brian Priestley; Japan: Kiyoshi Koyama;
Portugal: Antonio Rubio; Romania: Virgil Mihaiu; Russia: Cyril Moshkow; South
Africa: Don Albert.
Jack Maher, President 1970-2003
John Maher, President 1950-1969
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: Send orders and address changes to: DOWNBEAT,
P.O. Box 11688, St. Paul, MN 55111–0688. Inquiries: U.S.A. and Canada (877) 904-5299;
Foreign (651) 251-9682. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Please allow six weeks for your change
to become effective. When notifying us of your new address, include current DOWNBEAT label showing old address.
DOWNBEAT (issn 0012-5768) Volume 82, Number 9 is published monthly by Maher
Publications, 102 N. Haven, Elmhurst, IL 60126-2970. Copyright 2015 Maher Publications. All rights reserved. Trademark registered U.S. Patent Office. Great Britain registered trademark No. 719.407. Periodicals postage paid at Elmhurst, IL and at additional
mailing offices. Subscription rates: $34.95 for one year, $59.95 for two years. Foreign
subscriptions rates: $56.95 for one year, $103.95 for two years.
Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts, photos, or
artwork. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission
from publisher. MAHER PUBLICATIONS: DOWNBEAT magazine, MUSIC INC. magazine, UpBeat Daily.
POSTMASTER: Send change of address to: DownBeat, P.O. Box 11688, St. Paul,
MN 55111–0688. CABLE ADDRESS: DownBeat (on sale August 18, 2015) Magazine
Publishers Association.
Á
SEPTEMBER 2015
ON THE COVER
24
Ornette
Coleman
BY BILL MILKOWSKI
In celebration of a jazz icon, we
look back at critical responses to
his early works, present classic
quotes by Coleman, and compile
statements from his fellow
musicians—all from the pages of
DownBeat over the decades.
30
30 AACM
50 Years of Freedom
STEVE KAGAN
FEATURES
Art Ensemble of Chicago members Lester Bowie (left), Joseph Jarman and
Famoudou Don Moye perform in Chicago.
Cover photo of Ornette Coleman by Karen Kuehn
BY HOWARD MANDEL
36 Terell Stafford
Philadelphia Soul
BY PHILLIP LUTZ
42 Charlie Hunter
Groove Factor
BY BILL MILKOWSKI
46 Indie Life
SPECIAL SECTION
77 Keyboard School
78
82
Master Class
8 First Take
Pro Session
13 The Beat
Transcription
Toolshed
6 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2015
59 Chris Dingman
70 Benny Green
DEPARTMENTS
10 Chords & Discords
Ethan Iverson
Piano Solo
86
58 Brian Landrus
BY DAVID BERKMAN
BY CAILI O’DOHERTY
84
56 Gary Peacock Trio
20 Players
Julia Hülsmann
Jeremy Udden
Jason Miles
Matthew Stevens
53 Reviews
94 Jazz On
Campus
98 Blindfold Test
Jim McNeely
Jim McNeely
First Take
BY BOBBY REED
D. DARR
Ornette Coleman (right) enjoyed shooting pool
in his loft with good friends like Charles Lloyd.
Celebrating the
Trailblazers
LOVERS OF AVANT-GARDE MUSIC WILL FIND THIS ISSUE TO BE BITTERSWEET. We say goodbye to Ornette Coleman, but we also celebrate 50 amazing
years of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians).
The titanic Coleman blazed trails in the late ’50s and early ’60s by bravely
challenging, rethinking and rejecting some of the conventions of jazz. In our
tribute that begins on page 24, we look back at Coleman’s career and revisit the
critical responses to his music, including the famous “Double View of a Double
Quartet” review of Free Jazz from the Jan. 18, 1962, issue of DownBeat, wherein
Pete Welding awarded it 5 stars, while John A. Tynan gave it zero stars.
Coleman embodied the notion that the artist should pursue the muse with
steadfast devotion, despite any obstacles or naysayers.
As Coleman’s career evolved over the decades, the jazz world expanded, and
the center moved to the left. Coleman won a Pulitzer Prize and was honored with a
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The iconoclast became an icon.
When the AACM started in 1965, its founders sought the freedom to pursue
nonconventional music on their own terms, and they established a cooperative to
support artists whose work was outside the mainstream. Today, the AACM continues to thrive. (The Chicago Jazz Festival will present a special "AACM at 50" program on Sept. 3 featuring Henry Threadgill, Muhal Richard Abrams and others.)
The jazz world of 2015 is diverse, multifaceted, multicultural and expansive,
boasting thousands of avant-garde artists eager to push the boundaries. There’s
also a strong interdisciplinary thread, wherein jazz musicians collaborate with
poets, filmmakers, dancers and painters. Jazz today is enormously vast. We can
thank Coleman and the early AACM pioneers for helping expand the art form.
On page 13, we’ve got a story on Threadgill (an AACM artist) being inducted
into the Jazz Wall of Fame by the performing-rights organization ASCAP (American
Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). We applaud ASCAP for honoring
an artist who has long been at the vanguard of instrumental music.
In our Jazz On Campus column on page 94, Hans Sturm, who teaches at the
University of Nebraska–Lincoln, reflects on the way the university’s music school
strives to expand students’ horizons: “To younger students who might be familiar
with the better-known composers and bandleaders in jazz, we want to say, ‘Yes,
but have you checked out Henry Threadgill?’”
Threadgill is but one example of a brilliant artist who is now exploring territory
thanks to the ground broken by Coleman and the AACM pioneers.
Reedist Charles Lloyd was influenced by Coleman’s music, and he became
good friends with the titan. Here’s the statement Lloyd posted when he learned
of his friend’s passing: “Loneliness of the long distance runner. He knew his name
and wouldn’t play the game. Deep in stardust, he transposed the flight of Bird into
the key of the Universe—the sighs, the cries, the tenderness, the warmth, the longing, the injustice and the justice. He understood and was beyond all that. Despite
Kooliwaukee and Perspepitou, Pyramids came to say hello to him. He played
on Vesuvius before it swallowed Pompeii. Music of the Spheres, his song is your
song. Celestial. Manifest in the Absolute. Hologram.”
DB
Chords
Risky Behavior
Discords
Dave Douglas
AUSTIN NELSON
I am a collector of DownBeat and have every issue
from 1967–’83. At times, it
can be difficult to read a
review and imagine what
an album really sounds
like if you don’t know the
artist’s music well.
In your August issue,
critic Scott Yanow wrote
a 2-star review of Dave
Douglas’ album High
Risk. Because I had just
seen two sets by Douglas
on June 25 at the Rochester International Jazz
Festival, when I read this
review, it felt like déjà vu. I
have never read such an accurate description of
a CD in all my years of reading DownBeat.
I own more than 15 Dave Douglas CDs, and
I agree with Yanow that this is not his best recording. The performance I saw was loaded with
electronics, and it sounded as if the trumpet was
added to the music after it had already been recorded. There were brief trumpet blasts—exactly
as described by Yanow. It was as if he was at the
show! I can’t take anything away from Douglas
Farewell To Two Friends
Have you noticed how jazz—at least good
jazz—grows with time? On the day that each
of them passed, I immediately listened to the
music of the dearly missed and immensely melodic Charlie Haden and the jarringly innovative and thoughtful Ornette Coleman. I discovered their music many years ago on the basis
of DownBeat reviews. When I hear this music
today, I once again have a full appreciation of
their talents. They will always be with us.
VICTOR SNIECKUS
KINGSTON, ONTARIO
CANADA
Kudos to Cookers
In your August issue, I was thrilled to see The
Cookers at the top of the category Rising
Star–Jazz Group in the 63rd Annual DownBeat
Critics Poll. I hope this poll win leads to wider
exposure for this group of all-stars. I’ve been a
Billy Harper fan since I heard him play with the
Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in the 1970s.
It’s a pleasure to hear these giants perform and
expand the traditions of hard-bop and beyond.
I look forward to adding their next recording to
my collection.
MIKE EBEN
[email protected]
Have a Chord or Discord? Email us at [email protected]
or find us on Facebook & Twitter.
because he’s such a great player. I stayed for
both of his sets despite not really digging his
most recent path—even though I had the option
of seeing 14 other festival performances going
on at the same time at different venues. I applaud Mr. Douglas for doing what he feels like
doing, and I thank him for visiting our city. I’m
sure he’ll rebound with a new direction.
JAMES VERWEIRE
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
Beef with Critics
It is so sad to see what your critics have deemed
to be both jazz and good music (63rd Annual
DownBeat Critics Poll, August). Just about everything they gave top honors to is the “out”
kind of stuff. Whatever happened to melody,
swing and foot-tapping music? Just because
something is different and “out” doesn’t make
it the best.
Additionally, I have question: Does your critic
Bradley Bambarger like anything? Every time he
reviews an album, he just trashes it. It’s kind of
funny because whenever he gives an album a
bad review, I usually go check it out and end up
liking it. This year I’ve purchased a few albums
that he reviewed, and they were all far better
than the rating he gave them.
KEVIN MCINTOSH
STERLING HEIGHTS, MICHIGAN
Corrections
In the July issue, the review of Joe Locke’s
Love Is A Pendulum (Motéma) misidentified
the saxophonist Rosario Giuliani, who plays
on the track “Love Is The Tide.” Victor Provost
plays steel pan on “Embrace.”
DOWNBEAT REGRETS THE ERRORS.
The
News
Views From Around The Music World
Inside
14 / Montreal Jazz
Festival
15 / Gunther Schuller
16 / European Scene
17 / Chicago Blues
Festival
Threadgill, Wein Among
ASCAP Honorees
Pianist David Virelles (left), ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame honoree
Henry Threadgill and saxophonist Roman Filiu at the June 15 event
SCOTT WINTROW/GAMUT PHOTOS
T
he performance-rights organization ASCAP added four names to the
Jazz Wall of Fame in its Manhattan offices on June 15, honoring three
composers representing the span of jazz history, along with a promoter who has become nearly as famous as the festivals he produces.
At the ceremony, ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors
and Publishers) also recognized young artists and composers, giving the proceedings a reach into the future.
The honorees included Jelly Roll Morton (1890–1941), a pioneering architect
of the jazz form; Hoagy Carmichael (1899–1981), who composed some of the
most popular tunes in the Great American Songbook; reedist Henry Threadgill,
who has been at the vanguard of creative music for four decades; and George
Wein, the producer of the Newport Jazz Festival and other events.
Feathers were also furnished for the caps of vocalist Lizz Wright, who
received the ASCAP Foundation Vanguard Award, and pianist Guy Mintus,
who was given the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award.
Carmichael’s son, Hoagy “Bix” Carmichael, was present to accept recognition for the man who wrote “Stardust,” “Georgia On My Mind,” “Skylark”
and “Rockin’ Chair.”
“It’s my father—I just wish he were here to see this and feel this and
understand this,” said the visibly moved Carmichael.
New Orleans pianist Davell Crawford, representing the Louis Armstrong
Educational Foundation, noted the generational stretch in accepting the
award for Morton.
“This is great,” he said. “Jazz continues on with all the young composers.”
The scope of tradition was also represented by pianist Aaron Diehl, who
was on hand to perform Morton’s aptly named “The Finger Breaker” and,
after Wein’s induction, a spirited “Take The ‘A’ Train” with Wycliffe Gordon
delivering the melody on his growling trombone.
With a career in jazz dating back to the early 1950s, Wein has brought
many of the most-remembered moments in American music before the public. Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves’ legendary 27-chorus solo with the
Duke Ellington Orchestra at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, Anita O’Day’s
wonderful performance documented in the film Jazz on a Summer’s Day and
Bob Dylan going electric all occurred at Wein-produced festivals.
“It is something to be here, because I couldn’t understand why I was
being honored,” Wein, who is also a pianist, said in accepting the award. “I
thought this was for songwriters. I started thinking of all the songs I ever
wrote—which was one.”
Wein resisted audience requests to sing the song, written when he was 14,
but he did recite a few lyrics: “Why do we always/ break up in hallways/
Asking for one minute more?”
Bassist Marcus Miller, who was recently named an ASCAP board member, was called upon to introduce Threadgill.
“I’m the newest cat here, and this is the perfect way to make my debut,”
Miller said. “When I hear the music of Jelly Roll Morton, I can see the dresses the women were wearing. The primary responsibility is to reflect the times
that you are in. There’s no one in my opinion that represented the 1970s, the
1980s, like Henry Threadgill. That smooth, everything-is-in-its-place music
wasn’t appropriate.”
Threadgill—who recorded arrangements of Morton’s compositions with
his trio Air in 1979—joked about getting notified about the award.
“It’s certainly been a real surprise to have gotten this call from ASCAP,”
he said. “I knew about the Wall of Fame but I never think about things like
this. I’m always in the trenches working. I thought, ‘This is incredible. I better start checking the obituary columns [to make sure I haven’t died].’ Today,
before I came, I checked a few papers, and I was all right.”
Threadgill didn’t bring an instrument with him to the event, but pianist
David Virelles and saxophonist Roman Filiu played his “Where Coconuts
Fall,” from the 2001 Pi release Everybodys Mouth’s A Book.
The composer also noted the importance of having an organization like
ASCAP to protect the work of artists.
“We can’t leave it to the birds,” he said. “There’s nothing you can
leave it to but humanity. So in the end, that’s the guardian
of what we do.”
—Kurt Gottschalk
SEPTEMBER 2015 DOWNBEAT 13
Caught
Douglas’ Risk Yields
High Rewards in Montreal
Riffs
Wright on Concord: Vocalist Lizz Wright’s debut recording for Concord Records, Freedom &
Surrender, is available for pre-order via iTunes
and other digital retailers. Anyone pre-ordering
the album will receive an immediate download
of “Lean In” along with three additional tracks
prior to the official release on Sept. 4. Produced
by Larry Klein, the recording includes drummer
Vinnie Colaiuta, bassist Dan Lutz, percussionist
Pete Korpela, guitarists Dean Parks and Jesse
Harris and keyboardists Kenny Banks, Pete
Kuzma and Billy Childs. Wright engages in an
amorous duet with singer Gregory Porter on
the slow-jam track "Right Where You Are."
More info: lizzwright.lnk.to/freedomsurrender
Homage to Weber: ECM will release Pat
Metheny’s Hommage à Eberhard Weber on
Sept. 11. The specially commissioned 30-minute
suite by Metheny, with whom Weber played
and recorded in the 1970s, made its debut
this year in Stuttgart’s Theaterhaus during a
celebration of Weber’s 75th birthday featuring
key musicians from his storied career. Metheny
performs with Gary Burton, Scott Colley, Danny
Gottlieb and the SWR Big Band. Other tracks
include selections from Weber’s vast body
of work performed by the bassist’s longtime
collaborators Jan Garbarek, Paul McCandless,
Manfred Schoof and arranger Michael Gibbs.
More info: ecmrecords.com
4 Nights of Corea: SFJAZZ Center’s 2015–’16
season begins Sept. 10 with Chick Corea in four
programs over four nights: solo, in a duo with
Gonzalo Rubalcaba, in a trio with Christian McBride and Brian Blade, and in a duo with Béla
Fleck. The upcoming season will also feature
premieres of new works by SFJAZZ Resident
Artistic Directors Esperanza Spalding, Zakir
Hussain, Eric Harland and Terence Blanchard.
More info: sfjazz.org
Oracle on Blue Note: On Sept. 25, Kendrick
Scott Oracle will release We Are The Drum,
the band’s Blue Note debut. In addition to
drummer Scott, Oracle includes saxophonist
John Ellis, keyboardist Taylor Eigsti, guitarist
Mike Moreno and bassist Joe Sanders. Each
band member has a songwriting credit on the
11-track album, including six originals by Scott.
More info: bluenote.com
groove-oriented vamp, prompting wild applause
Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, trum- and hoots of excitement from the audience.
peter Dave Douglas and
his quartet High Risk
brought the forces of
Electronic Dance Music
and acoustic jazz together—literally.
During
a moment of hypercharged jamming midway through the set,
Douglas, hopping ecstatically around the stage,
almost collided with a
monitor at the base of
beatmaker Shigeto’s electronics table.
The
near-collision
was an apt metaphor
Dave Douglas leads his band High
for jazz’s latest polarizRisk in Montreal on June 30.
ing trend: the influence
of EDM, hip-hop, ambiSubsequent songs toyed with the porous barent and house music. In recent months, the debate
surrounding EDM-flavored projects by artists rier between electronic and acoustic music. One
like Douglas, saxophonist Donny McCaslin, key- tune began with Douglas removing his mouthboardist Robert Glasper and producer Flying piece and whistling into the leadpipe of his
Lotus has risen to a clamor. Supporters call it an trumpet, creating spectral noises that matched
important step forward for jazz, while detractors the eeriness of Shigeto’s electronic soundscape.
Another song found Shigeto crafting rich texcondemn it as a cheap stunt.
The debate is hardly new. From the moment tures and harmonic colors from piano samples
the Original Dixieland Jass Band first recorded and drum loops. A tribute to police-shooting vic“Livery Stable Blues” to the instant Miles Davis tim Michael Brown fused whispery digital sounds
electrified his band, critics have been decrying and Douglas’ crying trumpet into a heart-wrenchtechnology as an affront to jazz’s spontaneous, ing statement on loss and despair.
There were times when the acoustic elements
authentic “essence.”
Naysayers fear that drum loops and audio of High Risk outshined the electronic ones.
samples could permanently replace drummers Guiliana impressed with his fleet and acrobatic drum solos. And Douglas, who remained
and pianists.
But as a number of acts at the Montreal Jazz unplugged and electricity-free throughout much
Festival defiantly proved, the EDM movement— of the show, made sweeping declarations with his
and the technology that accompanies it—is a force warm, enveloping tone. Part of the joy in watching
to be reckoned with in jazz, one capable of blazing a group like this is witnessing how the flesh-andfresh trails for a music that has always prided itself blood musicians interact with pre-programmed
beats. At its best—and Douglas’ set certainly qualon innovation.
At the forefront of Montreal’s electro-acoustic ified—EDM-inspired jazz makes it easy forget
vanguard was Douglas. Joined by drummer Mark about any kind of genre distinctions. When the
Guiliana (another EDM-friendly artist), bassist music is this good, who cares what it’s called?
The next night, at the 2,100-seat Maison
Jonathan Maron and the aforementioned Shigeto,
the New York-based trumpeter spun beat-heavy Symphonique, pianist Jamie Cullum took a more
tracks from High Risk’s self-titled album to a “social” approach to integrating technology and
crowd of curious listeners at L’Astral, a two-story jazz. Midway through his concert, he announced
that he was going to bring a vocalist named Émilie
cabaret-style jazz club.
The ensemble made no attempt to hide its Bernard to the stage. Bernard, it turned out, wasn’t
EDM intentions. The first song opened with a just any backup singer. As Cullum explained, she
wash of ocean-like ambient noise from Shigeto’s was a fan from Montreal who earlier in the year
computer, over which Douglas played slow, posted a video on her Twitter account vowing to
full-throated melodies. Shigeto—a supremely lose over 100 pounds if the British crooner agreed
talented producer and DJ from Michigan—then to let her sing backup when he was in town. The
began to interject sci-fi laser effects, intergalac- duo performed Cullum’s “Everything You Didn’t
tic chimes and sloshy rain sounds. Guiliana and Do” with surprisingly good chemistry, after which
Maron flitted away underneath, bringing the elec- Cullum gave Bernard a huge embrace. Turning to
tro-acoustic stew to a boil. As the song reached the audience, he summed up the moment as accua climax, the group exploded into a trippy, rately as possible: “That was so cool.”
—Brian Zimmerman
MICHAEL JACKSON
Lizz Wright
JESSE KITT
FOR HIS JUNE 30 PERFORMANCE AT THE
Third Stream Innovator
Gunther Schuller Dies at 89
GUNTHER
SCHULLER,
A
Gunther Schuller had a long affiliation with
the New England Conservatory of Music.
ANDREW HURLBUT
French horn player and musicologist who led the Third
Stream movement, authored
several important books, wrote
some 200 compositions, established a degree-granting jazz
program at the New England
Conservatory of Music and
co-founded the Smithsonian
Jazz Masterworks Orchestra,
died June 21 at a Boston hospital. He was 89 and had been
suffering from multiple medical
problems,
including
leukemia.
The son of New York
Philharmonic violinist Arthur
Schuller, he took up flute and
French horn as a child at the
encouragement of his father.
While attending Jamaica High
School in Queens, he studied classical music theory and
counterpoint at the Manhattan
School of Music.
Schuller dropped out of
high school to perform as a
horn player with the American
Ballet Theater, and went on
to play with the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra and New
York’s Metropolitan Opera. He began composing at a young age, and his
total output of classical and hybrid works over the years was groundbreaking and prolific.
Inspired by the music of Duke Ellington, Schuller discovered jazz as a
teenager. He first came to the attention of jazz listeners as a member of Miles
Davis’ ensemble that recorded the Birth Of The Cool sessions in 1949–’50.
He went on to work as a composer-arranger and collaborator with such
prominent jazz artists as J.J. Johnson, Eric Dolphy, Dizzy Gillespie, Ornette
Coleman, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus and Joe Lovano.
In 1955, Schuller cofounded the Modern Jazz Society—with pianist John
Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet—for the purpose of merging the streams
of classical music and jazz. (It was later renamed the Jazz and Classical Music
Society.) The two musicians released a pair of albums in 1957–’58—Music For
Brass and Modern Jazz Concert—featuring “Third Stream” compositions, a
term coined by Schuller.
Three of Schuller’s better-known publications include Horn Technique
and the historical books Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development and
The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930–1945. His work as a writer of
liner notes earned him two Grammy Awards.
Schuller began teaching at the Manhattan School of Music in 1950, and
he spent a few years on faculty at Yale during the mid-1960s. He served from
1967 to 1977 as president of the New England Conservatory, where he founded the Third Stream program and started a ragtime ensemble that won a
Grammy under his direction in 1974. He also taught at the Berkshire Music
Center (now called Tanglewood) starting in 1963, and served as the institution’s artistic director from 1969 to 1984.
In 1990, Schuller and jazz musician/educator/scholar David Baker
cofounded the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, one of the nation’s
top repertory big bands. Other notable repertory projects included a performance of Mingus’ previously unproduced extended work Epitaph; Schuller
conducted and helped organize its premiere performance in 1989.
Among Schuller’s more notable Third Stream compositions are 1957’s
“Transformation For Jazz Ensemble,” 1959’s “Concerto For Jazz Quartet And
Orchestra” and 1960’s “Variants On A Theme Of Thelonious Monk.”
Schuller won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his orchestral piece Of
Reminiscences and Reflections, a tribute to his wife, Marjorie Black, who died
in 1992. He received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1991, and was
named an NEA Jazz Master in 2008.
Ken Schaphorst, who currently chairs the jazz studies department at
New England Conservatory of Music, frequently invited Schuller to visit the
conservatory to work with students. “Gunther Schuller was one of the most
inspiring, contentious, honest and uncompromising individuals I’ve ever
known,” he said. “Gunther would always let us know how we could hear better, play better, communicate the ideas of the composer more faithfully. And
on the very rare instances when I prepared the students well enough, or conducted well enough to satisfy him, his words of encouragement were all the
more meaningful.”
In the Feb. 12, 1976, issue of DownBeat, Schuller discussed his role as the
leading proponent of Third Stream music and his views on the development
of modern American music with journalist Robert Palmer.
“My whole concept of music is in fact a global one, where all musics coexist with each other,” Schuller said. “To separate them out again is a little bit
difficult to do. … America represents a confluence of so many cultures,
always cross-fertilizing each other. It never stops.
“Years ago I formulated the Third Stream idea, by which I meant just a lot
of musics coming into each other, intersecting in different ways with different strengths and in different combinations. That process is going on right
now, and I wouldn’t be able to predict where it will be 10 years from now. We
do that more than any other country in the world, and that, I think, is one of
the characteristics of American music making. And it’s very exciting.”
Schuller is survived by two sons who are professional musicians: Edwin
DB
Schuller, a bassist, and George Schuller, a drummer.
European Scene /
BY PETER MARGASAK
PER NADÉN
Michael Edlund (left), Fabian Kallerdahl and
Josef Kallerdhahl of MUSICMUSICMUSIC.
Collective Optimism
Bassist Josef Kallerdhahl is enthusiastically
optimistic about the future of HOOB Records, the
collective label he co-runs in Gothenburg, Sweden.
That’s not an assessment one often hears in the
record industry, but HOOB, which has more than
50 titles in its catalog, doesn’t use profits as its key
metric for success.
“The whole idea of HOOB is that the production of albums is a part of the musician’s work as
a whole,” Kallerdhahl explained. “The artists see
their albums as so much more than a commercial product; [they are] artistic milestones and
something you have to do to continue your work
as a musician.”
Last year, HOOB celebrated its 10th anniversary. In the spring of 2004, the imprint released
One Two Free, the debut album by the piano trio
MUSICMUSICMUSIC, which includes Kallerdahl,
his pianist brother Fabian Kallerdahl and drummer
Michael Edlund. Since then the label has grown
organically, centered around a community of creative musicians in Gothenburg and Stockholm—
an impressive development when one considers
how inexperienced the Kallherdahl brothers and
Edlund were when they launched the endeavor.
“At first we didn’t have a clue about managing
a label—no distribution, no routines for anything,”
said Josef Kallerdahl. “I used to bike around Gothenburg and give stores our albums, always forgetting to collect the money afterwards.”
The label operates as a true collective, with
each artist owning the rights to his or her recordings as well as the physical product. The artist
takes 100 percent of the risk, operating without
any meddling, and stands to make all profits
once expenses are met. Each release must be
supported by one of HOOB’s three principals—
who then serves as executive producer—while
everyone involved contributes to promotion and
graphic design.
“It means that the label can grow kind of fast
without us having to invest a lot of time and money,” Kallerdahl said. As a functioning entity with
a growing catalog, the artists tap into a situation
with established distribution—both physical and
digital—and the imprint’s name recognition.
Yet it’s not a free-for-all, as the label owners are
all busy with various musical projects, so the label
roster has a close-knit vibe. “We are tight friends,
and, in many cases, even family,” he said. “I have
to admit that knowing the people who want to release on HOOB is a big factor. We have to be able
to trust that they understand what kind work they
are expected to do.”
As nice as this model is, it wouldn’t matter
much if the work wasn’t up to par, but HOOB has
established itself as a valuable source for some of
Sweden’s most exciting music. Reedist Nils Berg’s
Cinemascope project builds inventive arrangements for amateur performances the leader has
found on YouTube videos from around the globe,
while singer Ellekari Sander puts a distinctive,
quirky spin on standards with her group The Other
Woman. The idiosyncratic and wildly talented pianist and composer Cecilia Persson (known for her
work with singer Sofia Jernberg in Paavo) recently
released Open Rein, her stunning debut as a leader, while another of Kallerdahl’s working groups,
The Splendor, has issued a terrific set of moody
post-bop on Forest. The label is open to music
outside of jazz tradition, as evidenced by art-pop
artists like Klabbes Bank and David Andreas, but
jazz remains HOOB’s primary focus.
“We try not to decide what kind of music we
should bring to the label,” Kallerdahl explained.
“The artistic freedom is important, and it’s fun to
have different things in the catalog. The one thing
that we all have in common is that we like doing
things ourselves and in our own way. Maybe that
is reflected in the music that comes out, too.” DB
Mildred Williams (left), mother of Larry ”Mud” Morganfield (center), joins Jerry Portnoy, Big Bill
Morganfield and E.G. McDaniel at the Chicago Blues Fest.
©JACK VARTOOGIAN/FRONTROWPHOTOS
Caught
Chicago Blues Fest Salutes Icons
THE CHICAGO BLUES FESTIVAL NEVER MISSES
an opportunity to stage an anniversary tribute set.
For the 32nd annual fest, which took place
June 12–14 in Chicago’s Grant Park, organizers
wisely chose to dedicate a night to the memory of
Chicago blues cornerstones Muddy Waters and
Willie Dixon in the centennial year of their births
(even though Waters’ birth year is now generally
recognized as 1913.)
Because Waters—a recent inductee in the
DownBeat Hall of Fame—died in 1983 and Dixon
passed away in 1992, the ranks of working musicians who played with the two legends during
their peak years have thinned considerably. The
solution: Build the lineup around family members
and former sidemen.
The results proved a mixed bag for a pair of
sets on June 14 at the Petrillo Music Shell. The Waters
set, which brought the curtain down on the threeday event, offered enough highlights to satisfy the
most discriminating Muddy-philes, while the Dixon
tribute that preceded it was hit-and-miss.
Waters, born McKinley Morganfield, was the
undisputed king of postwar Chicago electric blues.
His powerful, nuanced baritone could be alternately
seductive and threatening, punctuated by his piercing slide guitar.
Two of his sons, Larry “Mud” Morganfield and
Big Bill Morganfield, have dedicated themselves in
recent years to keeping Waters’ music in the blues
spotlight, both as performers on the festival circuit
and through a series of albums that borrow heavily
from their dad’s sound as they attempt to carve out
their own identities.
The Chicago-reared Mud, who lived independently of his father, and Big Bill, who lived
with his grandmother in Florida as a boy and now
makes his home in the Atlanta area, both inherited their father’s vocal prowess, as they demonstrated onstage. Big Bill, who at age 58 is two years younger than Mud, began his recording career before his
half-brother did.
Big Bill delivered a flawlessly constructed version of “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” accompanied by some of Muddy’s sidemen: guitarist-vocalist Bob Margolin, bassist Bob Stroger, drummer
Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith (son of Muddy’s drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith), pianist Barrelhouse
Chuck and harmonica player Paul Oscher.
Early in his career, Big Bill copied his father’s
every vocal inflection and mannerism, but as his
stage presence and singing have evolved, he has
developed a style all his own. It was fortunate the
group got the showstopper, “Mannish Boy,” out of
the way early, because encores were prevented by
an oppressive 9:30 p.m. curfew.
The lineup was almost totally reset for Mud’s
segment. Three latter-day Waters alumni—guitarists John Primer and Rick Kreher and harpist Jerry
Portnoy—were teamed with bassist E.G. McDaniel
and holdovers Smith and Barrelhouse Chuck.
Mud sat on a stool and emoted his heart out
on lesser-known tunes and a trio of songs from
his 2014 duo album with Kim Wilson, For Pops: A
Tribute To Muddy Waters: “Nineteen Years Old,”
“Blow Wind Blow” and “Gone To Main Street.”
The set ended, predictably, with everyone
back onstage for a vesion of “Mannish Boy,” as Big
Bill and Mud traded verses. Most free-for-all climaxes break down because of too much instrumentation and too little restraint, but this one left
the crowd in the jam-packed pavilion area shouting in vain for more.
The Dixon tribute, which included more than
a half-dozen descendants—including children,
grandchildren and even a great-grandniece—
paled in comparison to the opening act, Billy
Branch and the Sons of the Blues.
Branch returned as bandleader and harpist
for the Dixon set, which included Willie’s son
Freddie on bass and the talented vocalist Bobby
Dixon on keyboards.
This set featured more of a makeshift lineup, and
despite Branch’s impeccable musicianship and
vocalist-guitarist Cash McCall’s valiant efforts, it fell
short. Still, it was fascinating to hear Branch’s harmonica solos, a study in economy, juxtaposed with
Sugar Blue’s pyrotechnic harp flourishes.
It’s one thing to remember Dixon as the poet
laureate of Chicago blues, but quite another to
hear a live exploration of his deep catalog of blues
classics. After the band’s workups of “I’m Ready,”
“Seventh Son,” “Spoonful,” “My Babe,” “Little Red
Rooster” and others, the typical reaction from a
casual fan was, “I can’t believe Dixon wrote all
these songs!”
At the Chicago Blues Festival, that sentiment
is a welcomed one. Such is the celebratory and reverent spirit that drives these tributes.
—Jeff Johnson
Horace Silver Saluted at Pittsburgh
JazzLive
Caught
Sean Jones performs at the Pittsburgh
International JazzLive Festival on June 20.
bond between John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner.
On June 21, bassist Christian McBride’s trio
came out swinging, showcasing a tight rapport
between the leader, drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.
and pianist Christian Sands. The highly melodic set included strong versions of Stevie Wonder’s
“Send One Your Love” and “Good Morning,
Heartache,” popularized by Billie Holiday.
The fest’s after-hours jam sessions at Sonoma Grille
were led by Humphries and another Pittsburgh native,
jazz drummer Poogie Bell.
These sessions are an opportunity to watch
PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL JAZZLIVE FESTIVAL
A
t the fifth annual Pittsburgh International
JazzLive Festival, the connections
between fathers and sons emerged as a key
theme, which was appropriate for an event taking
place on Father’s Day weekend (June 19–21).
Drummer Roger Humphries and trumpeter Sean
Jones presented the world premiere of their compelling Song For My Father Reimagined, a project commissioned for the festival that saluted DownBeat Hall of
Famer Horace Silver (1928–2014) and honored the 50th
anniversary of his iconic Blue Note album. Humphries
is the sole surviving member of the musicians who
recorded Song For My Father.
During an interview with festival organizer Janis
Burley Wilson, Humphries recalled when he, as a
youngster, successfully auditioned for a spot in Silver’s
band: “[At] the studio where we had the audition, there
were all kinds of guys there: Billy Cobham, Al Foster,
Edgar Bateman Jr. I was very scared because when you
hear these people play for my first time, it was frightening. I was the youngest one there, and he could see
something in me where I was disciplined enough to follow him and be part of the band.”
Another highlight was a trio performance by
tenor saxophonist David Murray, pianist Geri
Allen and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington.
During a version of the folk song “Barbara
Allen” (arranged by Allen), the interplay between
Murray and the pianist evoked the unwavering
young musicians develop their talent, like saxophonist Winston Bell (son of Poogie Bell), who
took full command on Wayne Shorter’s “Fee Fi
Fo Fum.” Another player who made an impressive showing was trumpeter Braxton Bateman.
Talent runs in his family. He’s the son of trombonist Edgar Bateman III and the grandson of drummer Edgar Bateman Jr., who played with Coltrane
in Philadelphia before Elvin Jones ultimately
joined the saxophonist’s band. For Winston and
Braxton, their love for jazz grew from watching
their fathers play.
—Shannon J. Effinger
JULIA HÜLSMANN
Seeking Poetry
F
or the U.S. debut of her trio, German pianist
Julia Hülsmann played a two-night stand at
Café Sabarsky, specifically its Neue Galerie, an
Austrian restaurant referred to as “the closest thing
Manhattan has to a Viennese coffeehouse.” Sitting
in with the group was singer Theo Bleckmann,
who appears on her new album, A Clear Midnight:
Kurt Weill And America (ECM). Bleckmann and
Hülsmann’s chemistry on stage, unique and vital,
reflected the rapport they enjoyed in the studio on
this, their first collaborative recording.
Hülsmann has a history of working with singers. Asked if her collaboration with Bleckmann was
a key motivation for A Clear Midnight, she immedi20 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2015
©VOLKER BEUSHAUSEN/ECM RECORDS
Players
aly replies with a resounding “Yes!” With eyes sparkling, and animated gestures appropriate for the
bustling, Friday-afternoon activity of Midtown’s
Ameritania hotel lobby, Hülsmann adds, “They
[Kurt Weill Foundation] asked if we would work
with Theo. I had planned to work with him anyway. Then I found some unknown sheet music of
Kurt Weill’s. The book is called Unsung Weill, with
music that was cut out from certain musicals. Most
of them have never been recorded.”
As a child growing up in Bonn, Hülsmann
didn’t aspire to become a professional musician.
“I started late, at 11. That’s when I decided I wanted to learn the piano. I had started with the flute,
and then with classical piano, of course. [My parents] waited for me to decide what I wanted to do, so
there was no pressure at all. I grew up in a musical
household; both my parents played piano.
“I avoided piano competitions growing up,” the
47-year-old adds. “It’s not my kind of thing. My father
introduced me to jazz. He listened to Monk, and I
clearly remember this Paul Bley record, Open, To
Love. I started having jazz-piano lessons with this
teacher, but he was totally into old jazz. He transcribed solos and I played them, and not only piano
solos but Louis Armstrong. I didn’t want to become
a musician … too much pressure and competition. I had wanted to study psychology. But then
I heard Bill Evans. That was a turning point. It
was so beautiful.”
As for the band, in 1997 bassist (and husband)
Marc Muellbauer joined her, followed in 2002 by
drummer Heinrich Kobberling, and finally in 2011
by trumpet/flugelhorn player Tom Arthurs. She does
most of the collaborating with Muellbauer. “Marc
does the lion’s share of arrangements,” she says. The
new CD follows 2013’s In Full View quartet album
and 2011’s trio outing Imprint (both on ECM).
Hülsmann’s views on lyrics have evolved. She
notes, “Words are important to me, absolutely. It
started in 2000, in New York, because I was here to
study music. I was not interested in singers, or lyrics
or whatever, but I went to a concert with Wolfgang
Muthspiel, and [Norwegian] Rebekka Bakken was
singing. So, I realized I can write music but I can’t
write any lyrics. And so, I look for poems. I started with e.e. cummings and Emily Dickinson. And
it became one of my favorite things: writing music
to poems.”
That led to the linkage of lyricists with Weill. In
the case of Walt Whitman poems, the Kurt Weill
Foundation wouldn’t allow her to rearrange Weill’s
music, considering that she was not going to use all
four available pieces but just two. “So then, I decided to write new music—nothing to do with Kurt
Weill,” she recalls. “And I thought, ‘I would like to
write music to Walt Whitman poems.’” In the end,
the title track as well as “A Noiseless Patient Spider”
and “Beat! Beat! Drums!” are grouped together in
the track sequence for A Clear Midnight.
An unusual arrangement of “Mack The Knife,”
by Bleckmann and Hülsmann, is counterintuitively slow, almost unrecognizable with its graceful
entrance. “That happened very, very late, like three
days before the recording,” she recalls. “We were sitting on the train, after a concert, and we thought, ‘We
need something else, there’s something missing.’ So,
we thought, what about ‘Mack The Knife’? It’s really difficult when you have a tune that’s been played
a million times. So we had to find a totally different
arrangement. For me, it’s important when I play and
when I arrange a tune; it’s my world, and my approach
to music. So, we sat there. It was a very, very hot day in
June, and we just played around, and suddenly it was
there, in an hour. Normally, I never work like that. I
am a person who is in my room, alone, and I work on
things, and try to listen, and then I finish it. And then
we play it.”
—John Ephland
JEREMY UDDEN
Influenced by
Bandmates
S
axophonist Jeremy Udden caught the jazz
bug as a teenager, but that wasn’t what
cemented his love for performing live.
The versatile reedist grew up in Plainville,
Massachusetts, where as a high school student he
was in a local ska-punk band that gave him his
first taste of democratic collaboration.
“I’m a band guy,” said Udden, who currently
plays in his own eclectic group, Plainville, and
alongside trumpeter John McNeil in the West
Coast-style collective Hush Point. “Those were
formative experiences for me.”
He moved to New York City in 2005 after
earning a graduate degree at New England
Conservatory and spending time on the road as
a member of Boston’s eclectic Either/Orchestra.
When Udden began composing music for a new
project, he found he couldn’t quite shake the rock
music he was reared on—nor did he want to.
“There’s a song on the first Plainville record which
is basically a Pixies ripoff, and that’s me being a
skateboarder and listening to that music growing
up,” he explained.
A key influence on the band’s dusky sound
was the involvement of guitarist and banjo player Brandon Seabrook, whom Udden has known
since his teenage days. Seabrook’s membership
in Plainville allowed Udden to tap into influences
like Elliott Smith and Neil Young on the project’s
2009 debut, released by Fresh Sound.
Seabrook, who frequently veers toward dissonant extremes, has helped the saxophonist modulate his aesthetic. “My writing can be a little too
pretty or precious at times, so it was helpful to
have [Brandon] involved,” Udden said. “The combination of Brandon on one side and [keyboardist]
Pete Rende on the other, where he can err on the
side of pretty—that is the balance for the band.”
KAZIA MUSIAL-ADERER
Players
Udden is writing new music for Plainville, but
the group hasn’t released anything since its 2011
album If The Past Seems So Bright (Sunnyside).
He has pursued a similar sound on a collaboration with French bassist Nicolas Moreaux called
Belleville Project (Sunnyside), and continues to
explore his love for folk material in New Old
Timers, which adopts old-timey string band songs
for a horn-fronted quartet.
All that activity is in addition to his work in
Hush Point. About five years ago, Udden began to
sub for Bill McHenry in a band the saxophonist
co-led with McNeil. Occasional gigs led to weekly rehearsal sessions, and eventually they enlisted a rhythm section (currently bassist Aryeh
Kobrinsky and drummer Anthony Pinciotti)
and formed Hush Point, whose restrained energy
recalls cool jazz, but conveys no sense of nostalgia.
Udden and McNeil began composing together during their rehearsals, which was something
that the reedist had to adjust to. “When you’re
alone, you can come up with a stupid idea and
erase it if it doesn’t work,” Udden said. “But when
you’re standing in a room with someone, it can
be intimidating at first.” Udden explained that he
now enjoys the practice, in part because it takes
him back to his days in rock bands.
“Jeremy and I found that creating effective,
contrapuntal lines required us to think and play as
one person,” McNeil said. “There is always a logic
to [Udden’s] improvising. He doesn’t have the
all-too-usual approach of cobbling together one
unrelated phrase after another.”
The partnership with McNeil has led Udden
to rediscover his love of jazz tradition. “He really
got me engaged in that music again,” Udden said.
“It’s still so alive for him, so it stays alive for me.”
—Peter Margasak
JASON MILES
The Miles Connection
Trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and keyboardist Jason Miles
K
eyboardist Jason Miles has seen a lot
during the past 40 years. His career as
a professional musician—producer,
arranger, composer, programmer—kicked into
high gear with his first album as a leader, 1979’s
Cozmopolitan, featuring Michael Brecker, Marcus
Miller and Badal Roy.
A duo album with trumpeter Ingrid Jensen,
Kind Of New (Whaling City Sound) is the latest addition to his impressive oeuvre. Joining
them for this obvious nod to a former employer, Miles Davis, are such talents as Jay Rodriguez,
Jeff Coffin and Gene Lake, who help to foster the
vibe on 11 funky originals along with a version of
Wayne Shorter’s “Sanctuary.”
It isn’t the first time Jason has sought to invoke
the spirit of Davis, his having been on board for
such noteworthy Davis titles as Tutu, Amandla
and Siesta. “In 2005, after five years of getting constantly rejected, I got a deal with Narada/EMI to
make my album Miles To Miles: In The Spirit Of
Miles Davis,” he recalls. “The idea came from a song
Michael Brecker and I wrote that ended up being
called ‘Ferrari,’ inspired by a drive Miles took me
on up Pacific Coast Highway when I was hanging with him at his house in Malibu. Mike said,
‘This sounds like something Miles would be doing
now. You should make a whole album of music like
this.’ I got many greats to participate, like Meshell
Ndegeocello, Carter Beauford, Bob Berg, Nick
Payton, Mike and Randy [Brecker], Tom Harrell,
David Sanchez and James Genus.”
The keyboardist credits Davis’ Live-Evil (featuring Keith Jarrett on Fender Rhodes) with inspiring him to make Kind Of New.
Jason, 63, is happy to talk about his time with
Davis and the impact it had on the new album. “It
all came from five years of hanging, talking and
working with Miles,” he says. “The way he put his
bands together and his concepts—it was all about
casting the right people for his vision of the music,
getting a small group of the best musicians who
could appreciate the space to make the groove
strong and build the melody around it.”
Jensen’s presence forms a bridge for Jason with
this project. In fact, there is an ongoing band to play
this music, the two having been bandstand collaborators on and off for years. As Jason puts it, “The
point is to bring this concept to the public and let
them experience the small electric ensemble that
goes beyond your just-jamming vibe; one that
can develop the music and reintroduce the paradigm that bands like Weather Report, Return To
Forever, the Crusaders, the Pat Metheny Group and
Mahavishnu Orchestra brought to the forefront.
These were the bands and artists that started with
Miles. Miles To Miles had a number of different
trumpet players. On Kind Of New, Ingrid’s superb
sound, improvisation and understanding of what
this project was about brought the concept full-circle. You need that voice in front to bring the melody
alive. We played a number of shows under the radar
to test it out, and then decided to make the album.”
As Jensen sees it, “The Miles connection is a big
part of it, but there’s a common thread set up by both
of our special relationships with Michael Brecker and
his constant openness and support in both of our
lives. Jason’s ears are huge, and his deep, passionate
style of putting together the melodies and ideas that
we wrote, without losing the live essence of it all, is
pure artistry. After playing some of our book live
for the first time the other night it’s even more clear
to me how brilliant Jason is at shaping things into
place: from the badass cats he hires to the sound
structuring he [creates] around all of it once the
tunes start rolling and flying.”
Jason’s diverse credits include work with Sting,
Roberta Flack, Grover Washington Jr., Chaka Khan
and Ivan Lins (Jason’s A Love Affair: The Music Of
Ivan Lins won him a Grammy). He also formed the
fusion group Global Noize with DJ Logic.
But Davis devotees might wonder, isn’t Kind Of
New just a rehash? Jason responds adamantly:
“That is exactly what I didn’t want it to be. It takes
the great elements of modern progressive jazz and
keeps strong melodies afloat with a very modern
groove that really is now. We were privileged to
work with some killer drummers and bass players who understood the mission. I also wanted to reintroduce the Fender Rhodes sound: the
sound that had that edge, the sound that made it
so funky and unique.”
—John Ephland
JEAN-PIERRE LEDUC
Players
MATTHEW STEVENS
XXXX
In Due Time
G
ood things come to those who wait.
That maxim surely held true for guitarist and composer Matthew Stevens.
For the past decade, he’s been a rising star because
of his sparkling contributions to the all-star
NEXT Collective and ensembles led by trumpeter Christian Scott and drummer Terri Lyne
Carrington. But instead of leaping at the first
chance to release a solo disc, the 33-year-old
Toronto native waited until he had something genuine to say. Based upon the music on his sterling
debut, Woodwork (Whirlwind Records), Stevens’
patience served him well.
In addition to his cogent guitar improvisations,
Woodwork reveals Stevens to be an exceptional
composer and bandleader. The music reconciles the
electric and acoustic sonic realms, while also exhibiting fetching melodies and wondrous harmonies.
He also displays a knack for nifty rhythmic hooks,
as evidenced by such standouts as the anthemic
“Star L.A.,” which sounds as if it could have been
on a post-Jaco Pastorious Weather Report album;
the bucolic ballad “Brothers,” an ideal vehicle for
Stevens’ mastery on the acoustic guitar; and the percolating “Ashes (One)” and “Ashes (Two),” which
reflect Stevens’ exploration into Latin rhythms.
Stevens’ ensemble, which features pianist
Gerald Clayton, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer
Eric Doob and percussionist Paulo Stagnaro, animates the diaphanous compositions with a bracing collective empathy, which, in turn, elevates the
material beyond a callow blowing session.
When asked why it took so long to release a
solo date, Stevens, sitting in the Renaissance
Hotel lobby in Washington, D.C., just hours
before performing with Esperanza Spalding at
the D.C. Jazz Festival, replies: “Everybody has
their own timeline and you can’t fight it. I was
very aware of wanting to take the time to sift
through a lot of different stuff and come out with
KATHERINE BROOK
Players
something that I could stand behind 100 percent.” He plans to go into the studio in January to
record a follow-up disc.
Stevens is a singular talent brimming with a
strong identity. But he’s not a stylist who’s locked
into one particular sound or approach. Instead,
he conjures and adapts textures and melodic passages to meet the composition’s needs. “I think in
every style of music, there’s a tendency to stick
to a particular timbre, especially guitarists,” he
says. “Some people come with the idea of, ‘This
is the particular sound I use in every situation no
matter what the musical context.’ For me, that
never resonated. I like using different sounds and
I like letting the song tell me what kind of sound
it needs.”
Doob, who’s been playing with Stevens for
nearly a decade, observes that the persuasive
strengths of Stevens’ music lie in how seamlessly
he intertwines his gifts as a composer and improviser. “His music is not so much about just having an introductory melody, on which we’re just
off to the races soloing all over it,” Doob explains.
“Matt’s done a lot of thinking in terms of how to
write music that organically brings out his abilities to improvise. Also, his music feels bigger than
any specific genre. You can’t really pigeonhole it
into one thing. More often than not, his compositions—whether they are harmonically complex or
not, aggressive or tender—tend to be beautiful, lush
and always melodically compelling.”
And while Stevens tends to pen tunes that
burst with accessibility, there’s an enigmatic quality that surges throughout them. “A lot
of people write songs about a particular event
or person, or to evoke a particular emotion,” he
explains. “Since I’m not a lyricist, music, for me,
has always been about saying something that I
don’t know how to say through words. My music
exists alone, on its own terms.” —John Murph
Ornette Coleman at the 2008 Chicago Jazz Festival.
REMEMBERING
ORNETTE
COLEMAN
BY BILL MILKOWSKI • PHOTO BY MICHAEL JACKSON
A
true revolutionary, Ornette Coleman dramatically altered
the course of music with his 1959 manifesto The Shape
Of Jazz To Come and continued to make profound
contributions to jazz for more than half a century. When
the saxophonist-composer passed away on June 11 at
age 85, the jazz world lost a DownBeat Hall of Famer, an NEA
Jazz Master, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Grammy Lifetime
Achievement honoree.
Coleman’s instantly identifiable voice on the alto saxophone,
characterized by a pungent tone and a keening, plaintive cry
that carried the deep blue feeling of his native Texas, rang out
with rare authority, melodic invention and poignant lyricism
on timeless gems like “Peace,” “Ramblin’,” “Turnaround,”
“Blues Connotation,” “Sleep Talking” and the haunting,
dirge-like standard “Lonely Woman,” which rock icon
Lou Reed once called “the greatest melody anywhere.”
REMEMBERING • ORNETTE COLEMAN
ORNETTE SPEAKS
Ornette Coleman was the subject of numerous DownBeat reviews and features over
the decades. Here are some of his more memorable statements from our archives.
war-jazz, race-jazz, poverty-jazz and
b.s. and let the country truly become
what it is known as (GOD country)—unless we fear God has left and we must
make everyone pay for His leaving?
I am sure if we prayed, He’d at least
give the place back to the Indians because it isn’t going to mean anything
to us anymore if we find that we are
hating each other.
“Maybe God will let us all go back
home.”
N
A
pril 8, 1965: “I’d rather take my chances and truly
play—and see if a person really liked it—than try to
figure out something that people are likely to like, play
that, and believe that that’s what they really like.”
J
une 1, 1967: “How many of us would like to find a
way to have all of the many chances to serve in
their most useful and most productive environment?
But one cannot find or learn how to reach these goals,
because the music life of today, as it happens to us,
has robbed the musician of his own values of searching for how, why and where.
“His values must not cause others to hate, cheat
and misunderstand. I don’t know who my personal enemies are or why I feel that they exist in and
out of the music world, but I hope my talent and
beliefs won’t offend any sex, religion, or political
and social pleasures.
“I have always searched in myself before accusing
another for something that I have suffered from, before I acted to cure the cause. One who is suffering
from an imperfection of any music expression has
only his own conviction to accuse. But when that expression has had an outsider decide its value, and the
outsider uses that musical expression to condemn a
social thought, the result is only hate, cheating and
loss of music value.
“So why don’t we Americans, who have a duty to
our neighbor and our mother country, get off this
DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES
Coleman poses with a plaque honoring his win in the category
New Stars–Alto Saxophone of the 1960 DownBeat Critics Poll.
ov. 22, 1973: “I think basically that I
try to stay with the traditional concept of being an improvisor without
having to rely upon Tin Pan Alley structure. I started out trying to be what I
believe is a natural player, and so many
people thought I was just picking up the
horn and playing. I realized that that
wasn’t my purpose, trying to prove to
other people that all you had to do was
get an instrument and play.
“I started around 1950 compiling
all the things that I had taught myself
about music. And I finally realized I had
come up with some personal theories
that involved orchestrated music. Instruments only play a certain melodic
line in relationship to orchestrated music. Undoubtedly, those instruments
were designed to play certain melodic
and harmonic structures to enhance other melodic
lines and structures.
“Whenever I used to play the saxophone with the
changes on the piano, I’d always find myself playing
in a different register in the chord. Yet I’d still be playing the changes. I remember once, I was in California
with Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Kenny Drew, and I
think it was Sonny Rollins on tenor. I asked them to let
me sit in—this was in the early ’50s—and they started
playing “Donna Lee” and “Back Home In Indiana.” I
knew the changes and started playing along, and finally I couldn’t play, because I didn’t want to stay on
that same pattern. So I started playing the way I play
today. And they walked off the bandstand on me.”
O
ct. 5, 1978: “If you’re playing a melody and you
don’t have everything in your mind that you can
do with that note—what some people call improvising, which I now call the harmolodic theory and
method, which has to do with using the melody, the
harmony and the rhythm all equal—that I find that
it’s much easier when a person can take a melody, do
what they want to do with the melody, then bring his
expression to yours, then combine that for a greater
expression. But there are not many people that I’ve
been able to teach how to do that because I haven’t
been working with a lot of people. But the people who
I have worked with, they know how to do that.”
J
une 1986: “The thing that I really want to achieve
in my lifetime is to inspire people to be individuals.
That to me is it.”
A
ugust 1987: “You know what’s incredible? Every
time I read a review of my record, it says I’m the
only one soloing. That’s incredible, because that’s all
Prime Time’s doing. I’m the one that’s stuck—they’re
the ones that are free. Because people hear the horn
standing out in front, they think that I am doing the
soloing, but that’s just the sound of the instruments. I
mean, when you hear my band, you know that everybody is soloing, harmolodically. Here I am with a band
based upon everyone creating an instant melody,
composition, from what people used to call improvising, and no one has been able to figure out that that’s
what’s going on. All my disappointment about it just
makes me realize how advanced the music really is.”
F
ebruary 1996: “Like everything in Western culture, everything has to have a value more than
to yourself, no matter what you do, regardless of how
good you are or how bad you are, how beautiful or
how ugly. You have to, if you’re going to come to the
stage of expression, first find the people who will allow
you in their territory. To see if the value of what you
do fits the image of what they’re doing in relationship
to wealth. Some people find that quicker than others.
There’s nothing wrong with that; it becomes more
a personal privilege than a free opportunity. I think
that’s the reason why the music in America is so limited as far as concepts of sound. America, it’s a young
country, and yet the ancestors that ran America came
from an old country. I don’t think we’ll ever catch up.”
A
ugust 1998: “I’m tired of being juried by people who don’t know what I’m doing. The record
companies make a profit off your past, but they say
they’re not interested in what you’re doing now. The
music industry is mostly interested in my past, never
in my future. But I believe that kind of thinking hasn’t
brought us any closer to each other. Art is not for the
special person, it is for anybody.”
D
ecember 2005: “With all the music I write, I always
give the people who are playing with me the privilege to add anything to what I’m doing. I don’t think
of being a leader; I think of being a sharer.”
D
ecember 2008: “Life is not an object, it’s not
a form, you can’t see it, you can’t talk to it or at
least it can’t talk back. But it allows you to know that
there is something eternal, and you didn’t create it.
You can’t prove that you created life. Human beings
don’t spend enough of their love for life to understand
why the quality of life is so easy to be made into anger,
disappointment. Whatever it is, someone can say something to you and you want to fight. But that’s not life doing that, that’s jealousy, envy, dishonesty. Those things
come into being because of value and wealth.”
©JACK VARTOOGIAN/FRONTROWPHOTOS
Coleman at Carnegie Hall in
New York City on June 25, 2003.
Although Coleman’s renegade approach to the
music shattered many of the rules of jazz, it liberated generations of musicians from the confines of
preconceived chord sequences, opening the door on
a new era of “free-jazz” that continues to yield ambitious results to this day.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 9, 1930,
Coleman played tenor sax in r&b and bebop bands
as a youth before switching to alto, which became his
main instrument after relocating to Los Angeles in
1954. Due to his penchant for microtonal abstractions, which conventional players regarded as unacceptably sharp or flat, he met resistance in his early
days from musicians who were reluctant to let him
near the bandstand. But he eventually found an
inner circle of like-minded renegades in pianist Paul
Bley, drummers Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins and
bassist Charlie Haden, who together began forging a
new collective improv language at places like L.A.’s
Hillcrest Club.
Coleman’s triumvirate of forward-looking
albums with his quartet—1958’s Something Else!!!!
along with 1959’s Tomorrow Is The Question and
the prophetically titled The Shape Of Jazz To Come
(also 1959)—ushered in the free-jazz movement and
introduced Coleman’s “harmolodic theory,” whereby harmony, movement of sound and melody all
share the same value.
After moving to New York in November 1959,
Coleman gained notoriety from a 10-week residency at the Five Spot with his quartet of trumpeter
Don Cherry, Haden and Higgins. For a second fourmonth residency at the Five Spot in 1960, Blackwell
replaced Higgins on drums. And still Coleman faced
hostility from certain critics and colleagues. Miles
Davis dismissed him as “psychologically screwed
up,” while Max Roach allegedly punched him in
the mouth during his Five Spot residency and Roy
Eldridge famously declared, “He’s jiving, baby!”
And yet, there were those who championed his
cause, including Leonard Bernstein, Gil Evans and
John Lewis, who regarded Coleman as an extension
of Charlie Parker and who had brought him to the
attention of Atlantic Records.
Three Coleman landmarks from around 1960—
his provocative double-quartet project Free Jazz
and two potent quartet recordings, Change Of The
Century and This Is Our Music—helped coalesce
the free-jazz movement. In 1965, Coleman recorded
two volumes of a live trio recording (At The Golden
Circle) with the new rhythm tandem of bassist David
Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett. The following year he introduced his 10-year-old son Denardo
Coleman as the drummer, alongside Haden, on
another trio recording, The Empty Foxhole. Ornette
closed out the decade with two acclaimed recordings—1968’s New York Is Now and Love Call—
that featured him doubling on trumpet alongside
tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Jimmy
Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones.
Redman would later appear alongside Haden
and the double-drum tandem of Higgins and
Blackwell on Coleman’s wildly ambitious 1971
Columbia Records debut, Science Fiction, which
included the harmolodic aria “What Reason Could I
Give” with Indian vocalist Asha Puthi and the whirlwind title track featuring trippy, echo-laden narration by poet David Henderson. Also of note on that
edgy outing is “Rock The Clock,” which has Ornette
on violin, Redman alternating between tenor sax
and musette and Haden playing his upright bass
through a wah-wah pedal to “Purple Haze” effect.
Coleman continued to push the envelope on
1972’s Broken Shadows, which featured Redman,
Haden, Higgins and Blackwell along with trumpeters Cherry and Bobby Bradford, pianist Cedar
Walton, guitarist Jim Hall and blues vocalist
Webster Armstrong. It was followed that year by
the epic concerto Skies Of America, which was
recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London and
consisted of one long Coleman composition performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Measham.
The mesmerizing Dancing In Your Head (1977),
featuring the Master Musicians of Jajouka, introduced Coleman's new electric Prime Time band
including the twin guitars of Bern Nix and Charles
Ellerbee, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson and
the dynamic young electric bass guitarist from
Philadelphia, Rudy McDaniel (who would soon
become known as Jamaaladeen Tacuma). Coleman’s
recording as a sideman on Tales Of Captain Black,
a 1979 release on the Artists House label led by guitarist and harmolodic disciple James “Blood” Ulmer,
is also noteworthy during this period for conjuring
up wah-wah-inflected fantasies of Eric Dolphy jamming with Jimi Hendrix.
Coleman began courting a new muse on 1982’s
decidedly groove-oriented jazz-funk manifesto Of
Human Feelings, which was driven by Tacuma’s
potent Steinberger electric bass lines in combination
with the tandem drummers Denardo Coleman and
Calvin Weston. Other important recordings of the
decade included Coleman’s collaboration with guitarist Pat Metheny on 1986’s Song X, which also featured Haden and drummer Jack DeJohnette, and
1988’s Virgin Beauty, featuring guest appearances by
Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia on three tracks.
The ambitious double album In All Languages (1987)
featured a reunion of Coleman’s original quartet of
Higgins, Haden and Cherry along with performances by the electric Prime Time band featuring Tacuma
and Al MacDowell on electric basses, Ellerbee and
Nix on guitars, and Denardo and Weston on drums.
The ’90s were marked by typically provocative
statements, such as 1995’s Tone Dialing (with
Kenny Wessel and Chris Rosenberg on guitars, MacDowell and Brad Jones on basses, Dave
Bryant and Chris Walker on keyboards, Denardo
on drums, Badal Roy on tablas) and 1996’s simultaneous quartet releases, Sound Museum: Hidden
Man and Sound Museum: Three Women (both featuring pianist Geri Allen, bassist Charnett Moffett
and drummer Denardo).
Coleman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Sound
Grammar was recorded live in Ludwigshafen,
Germany, on Oct. 14, 2005, with his 21st century quartet of son Denardo on drums and the twobass tandem of Juilliard-trained arco master Tony
Falanga and upright player Greg Cohen, a longstanding member of John Zorn’s Masada. Cohen
was later replaced in the lineup by electric bassist
and former Prime Time member MacDowell, who
forged an indelible hookup with Falanga through his
deft chording of the low-end instrument, essentially
providing a pianistic comping function in the band.
The venerable, beloved Coleman was feted at
an all-star 84th birthday celebration in Brooklyn
at the Prospect Park Bandshell on June 12, 2014.
Organized by Denardo, the gala featured onstage
comments by Sonny Rollins as well as performances by Joe Lovano, David Murray, Henry
Threadgill, Branford Marsalis, Antoine Roney,
Ravi Coltrane, James Ulmer, Geri Allen, Bill
Laswell, Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith, tap
dancer Savion Glover and Red Hot Chili Peppers
bassist Flea.
Coleman played alto saxophone at the event—
his last major public appearance. After Brooklyn
Borough President Eric Adams read an official proclamation declaring it Ornette Coleman Tribute Day
in the borough, the honoree gave a speech that was
brimming with emotion.
“All I know to do is cry,” Coleman said. “It’s so
beautiful to see so many beautiful people who
Charlie Haden (left), Ornette Coleman, Denardo Coleman and Dewey
Redman perform at Philadelphia's Town Hall on June 16, 1968.
know what life is, who know how to get together
and help each other.”
The jazz landscape in 2015 is vastly different
from the one Coleman encountered as a young man.
The borders have been expanded, and Coleman
deserves much of the credit for that. During a eulo-
BOB FUENTES/DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES
REMEMBERING • ORNETTE COLEMAN
gy at the June 27 funeral held at Harlem’s Riverside
Church, Denardo said this about his father: “He was
down-to-earth and simple, yet complex and sophisticated. It’s not like he didn’t like order; he just didn’t
accept the order imposed on him. … He went his own
DB
way, and I think we’re all a little better for it.”
FREE JAZZ: THE ORIGINAL REVIEW(S)
J
an. 18, 1962: The following contains excerpts
from DownBeat’s review of Coleman’s double-quartet album Free Jazz. In a break from what
had been a tradition of assigning one reviewer to
any given album, DownBeat invited two critics with
vastly different viewpoints to assess and rate the
music on this landmark release. The concept of offering multiple reviews of an album eventually led
to the development of The Hot Box, which today is a
favorite among DownBeat readers.
Pete Welding's Review
Rating: +++++ (Five stars)
In this, his most recent Atlantic recording, iconoclast alto saxist Coleman carries to their logical
(though some listeners will dispute this term) conclusion the esthetic principles present to a lesser
degree—quantitatively, at least—in his previous recordings.
The entire LP—both sides—is given over to a collective improvisation by a double quartet that lasts
36½ minutes. Using only the sketchiest of outlines
to guide them, the players have fashioned a forceful,
impassioned work that might stand as the ultimate
manifesto of his new wave of young jazz expressionists. The results are never dull.
In first hearing, Free Jazz strikes one as a sprawling, discursive, chaotic jumble of jagged rhythms
and pointless cacophonies, among which however
are interlarded a number of striking solo segments
(particularly those of the two bassists). The force, intensity, and biting passion that motivate it also come
across.
On repeated listening, however, the form of the
work gradually reveals itself, and it is seen that the
piece is far less unconventional than it might at first
appear. It does not break with jazz tradition; rather,
it restores to currency an element that has been
absent from most jazz since the onset of the swing
orchestra—spontaneous group improvisation.
All things considered, the disc is largely successful—it certainly lived up to Coleman’s dicta, at
least. It is a powerful and challenging work of real
conviction and honest emotion; it poses questions
and provides its own answers to them; it is restless in
its re-examination of the role of collective improvisation, and this is, in many respects, where the work is
most successful.
John A. Tynan's Review
Rating: Zero Stars
This friendly get-together is subtitled “a collective improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double
Quartet.” One might expect a “collective improvisation” by Coleman’s usual crew of four to be a merry
event. But here we shoot the moon. It’s every manjack for himself in an eight-man emotional regurgitation. Rules? Forget ’em.
Where does neurosis end and psychosis begin? The answer must lie somewhere within this
maelstrom.
If nothing else, this witch’s brew is the logical end product of a bankrupt philosophy of
ultra-individualism in music. “Collective improvisation?” Nonsense. The only semblance of collectivity lies in the fact that these eight nihilists
were collected together in one studio at one
time and with one common cause: to destroy
the music that gave them birth. Give them top
marks for the attempt.
ARTISTIC RESPONSE
Musicians made plenty of powerful statements about Coleman in the pages of DownBeat over the years.
J
uly 19, 1973: “Ornette came out of Bird. So, what
he's doing now may sound mysterious to the uninitiated, but he is a straight swinger from way back.
Ornette Coleman can play.”
—Thad Jones
Coleman received tremendous praise and
harsh criticism from other musicians.
RON HOWARD/DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES
J
une 1986: “[What affected me] was just the general feeling I got from listening to Ornette and
the musicians that played with him: They’re playing
the music that they felt strongest about with this incredible love and joy about it, without worrying about
style, or what was current. It seemed very direct to
me, and while, obviously, a large part of the music
that I’ve done over the years stylistically is not close at
all, there’s always that same feeling I try to play with.
… To me, Ornette’s music is about melody. There’s
a lot more going on besides that, of course, but it’s
about singing, and talking, and about the shape of
the line—and to me it transcends style. It’s really pure,
and that, more than anything else, has been the inspiration I’ve drawn from listening to Ornette’s music
over the years.”
—Pat Metheny
A
ugust 1992: “The thing about Ornette that’s so
incredible is that he’s one of the only musicians
I can think of who has a complete musical universe
at his fingertips all the time. Almost everybody else is
dealing with a little bit of this or that. Ornette started
from the ground up and invented this way of playing.
That, to me, is truly inspirational.”
—Pat Metheny
A
ugust 2007: “Everything he says is compelling.
Every single interview of him I find totally transforming, as well as every story that I’ve ever heard
about him."
—Jenny Scheinman
A
ugust 2007: “He needed to go to New York to get
closer to the energy that was going to give him
the ways to go through a lot of different doors. What
they presented sounded like it came out of the bowels
of the ghetto. It cried and ached. It was such a change
to so many musicians. A lot of musicians didn’t like
what he was doing, but as long as it was the truth—
you unzipped your body and gave out the deepest,
darkest thoughts you had—it didn’t matter.”
—Bobby Hutcherson
A
ugust 2013: “He always surprises you. There’s
never anything that you can predict; his music is
predictably unpredictable, and lovely, gentle, beautiful, pretty. That’s what Charlie Parker used to say:
‘Look for the pretty notes.’ And Ornette has a million
of them.”
—Charlie Haden
M
ay 26, 1960: “There are many important musicians who are advocates of Ornette’s freedom
theory in improvisation. But there are fewer who
would use his approach to sound and harmony. I
would say that 75 percent of jazz musicians dismiss
Ornette’s whole thing. But he has caused more reflection and analysis than anyone since Bird, Diz
and Thelonious.
"But the so-called 'music of tomorrow' theme,
which accompanies his performances, is more harmful than good. Ornette is a man to be reckoned with
today. A Miles Davis is basically an impressionist,
Charles Mingus a surrealist, John Lewis a neo-classicist. But how do you classify an Ornette Coleman?
“His followers believe that his is the ‘shape of
jazz to come.’ I feel that though Ornette may influence future jazz, so will George Russell’s Lydian
concept of tonal organization, Coltrane’s sheets of
sound, Miles’ melodic lyricism, and Gil Evans’ clusters of sound in rhythm.
“Ornette Coleman is an innovator of the first water. But he is certainly no messiah.”
—Julian “Cannonball” Adderley
M
ay 26, 1960: “It’s like organized disorganization, or playing wrong right. And it
gets to you emotionally, like a drummer. That’s
what Coleman means to me.” —Charles Mingus
N
ov. 2, 1967: “If Ornette wants to play more than
one instrument, he ought to go and listen to
Victor Feldman’s album, and learn how to play
more than one instrument. You just don’t pick up
an instrument and start to play and because you
are Ornette Coleman, it is immediately great—that’s
a lot of crap.”
—Shelly Manne
Renee Baker
MARK SHELDON
PAUL NATKIN/PHOTO RESERVE INC
Art Ensemble of Chicago: Joseph Jarman (left), Malachi Favors
Maghostut, Famoudou Don Moye, Lester Bowie and Roscoe Mitchell
Henry Threadgill
PAUL NATKIN/PHOTO RESERVE INC.
Muhal Richard Abrams
MICHAEL JACKSON
Amina Claudine Myers
MICHAEL JACKSON
Fred Anderson
MARK SHELDON
MARK SHELDON
Ernest Dawkins
AACM
50
BY HOWARD MANDEL
YEARS
OF FREEDOM
an American non-profit artists collective—focused on any
medium of imaginative self-expression—that for 50 years
NAME
has promoted innovation by imposing no aesthetic rules except that
members’ efforts be original.
There is only one such group: the Association for the Advancement
of Creative Musicians, or AACM.
Generating successive waves of unique individuals, the AACM has
seen its adherents emerge from local obscurity to international fame
via high-profile performances and lauded recordings, philanthropic
support, prestigious awards and appointments to important academic
institutions. Throughout 2015, the organization’s half-century
anniversary has been and continues to be celebrated far and wide at
festivals and museums, in operas and self-produced concerts that
remain true to the group’s fundamental principles while looking
to the future.
Founded in Chicago in April 1965 from kitchen-table discussions of four
African-American jazz musicians—pianists Muhal Richard Abrams and
Jodie Christian, trumpeter Kelan Phil Cohran and drummer Steve McCall—
the AACM was an early manifestation of do-it-yourself determination,
initiated by people who had learned about activism from the civil rights
movement. Today the AACM has a roster of 131 members, independent
but interactive chapters in Chicago and New York City, global influence
and an industrious network that reaches beyond genres to enable all
manner of daring, ambitious musical activity.
Musicians gathered at the University of Chicago's Mandel Hall for
an AACM 50th anniversary concert and celebration on April 26.
MICHAEL JACKSON
MICHAEL JACKSON
Douglas Ewart
The AACM’s ranks include National Endowment of the Arts Jazz
Masters; Guggenheim, MacArthur and Doris Duke fellows; a Herb
Alpert Award winner, at least one finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and
professors at major colleges and universities. Its best-known members
include Abrams, Dee Alexander, Anthony Braxton, Ari Brown, Ernest
Dawkins, Joseph Jarman, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Amina
Claudine Myers, Mike Reed, Rasul Siddik, Wadada Leo Smith, Henry
Threadgill, Edward Wilkerson Jr. and Kahil El’Zabar, as well as the
late Fred Anderson, Lester Bowie, Pete Cosey, Malachi Favors,
Fred Hopkins, Leroy Jenkins, John Stubblefield and Kalaparusha
Maurice McIntyre. These “outside the box” musicians have released
thousands of hours of recorded music, never settling for comfortable
conventions, usually aiming for new music breakthroughs.
Collectively as well as individually, AACM members have worked
hard, accomplished much and seldom let successes go to their heads.
As Abrams, the association’s eminence, said modestly in reference to
Roscoe Mitchell, Threadgill and Jack DeJohnette (who’ve known each
other since the early ’60s and collaborate on DeJohnette’s recent ECM
album, Made In Chicago): “We’ve been associated a long time, and
we just come together and play music. There’s no difference [between
then and now] except for that which happens when the music is
played. For the musician, it’s a continuous practice, you realizing your
intent as an artist. Each person has his or her own approach, but we have
that practice in common.”
AACM • 50 YEARS OF FREEDOM
n 1965, the membership of the Association
for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
reflected the dominant masculine makeup of
jazz culture. But over the course of five decades,
women have increasingly joined and been lauded
as equals by the collective.
At first, the most active females in the AACM
were Peggy Abrams (Muhal’s wife) and Sandra
Lashley, working largely behind the scenes. Pianist-composer-singer Claudine Myers (she added
“Amina” to her name in 1967) performed on the
second-ever AACM concert of Aug. 23, 1965. Today, there’s an informal women’s caucus, consisting of flutist Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid,
pianist-singer and dean emeritus of the AACM
School Ann Ward, violinist Renee Baker, vocalists
Dee Alexander, Iqua Colson and Rita Warford, percussionist Coco Elysses, singer-harpist-flutist Sonjia Hubert Harper (aka Maia) and Janis Lane-Ewart,
a non-instrumentalist who provides organizational, promotional and curatorial support.
“There was never any problem with my being
a woman in the AACM,” Myers says. “I was always
encouraged. The musicians were always positive.
I had no negative experiences at all.” Born in central Arkansas, where she took piano lessons at her
small town’s Catholic school, she moved to the
Dallas–Fort Worth area at age 11 and accompanied
the choir of her Baptist church. She studied concert music and music education at college in Little
Rock, Arkansas, and moved to Chicago in 1963.
There she met drummer Jerol Donovan (later
named Ajaramu), whom she married and with whom
she played in a trio. She backed up saxophonists Sonny
Stitt and Gene Ammons and was introduced by singer
Fontella Bass—then trumpeter Lester Bowie’s wife—
as a studio musician to Chess Records. Myers is first
I
Nicole Mitchell
2015 MARK SHELDON
AACM’s
Powerful Women
heard employing full AACM-encouraged originality
on Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre’s 1969 album Humility In The Light Of The Creator.
Nicole Mitchell moved to Chicago in 1990,
meeting Maia and Douglas Ewart while playing
for change on downtown streets. She, Harper
and guitarist-bassist-keyboardist Shanta Nurullah
banded together in the all-female group Samana,
and in 1995 Mitchell performed her AACM initiation concert, accompanied by guitarist Jeff Parker,
with her one-year-old daughter on her back.
“There weren’t that many women then
on the scene in general,” Mitchell recalls.
“I think there are more now, but still not
enough. I try my best to get women to play
with me—my Black Earth Ensemble is usually half women, though I change the personnel for every performance. I’ve been working
with JoVia Armstrong, a singer-songwriter,
percussionist and new AACM member, and
Mankwe Ndosi, who became a member this
year as well. I’m also working with Lauren
Deutsch, executive director of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, to raise funds to get all the
women of the AACM together for a panel
discussion and performance in December, to
finish off the 50th anniversary celebration.
That would be a good thing to do. It’s never
happened before.”
—Howard Mandel
The musicians who constituted the AACM at its
start certainly didn’t find it easy to realize their
intents. The four founders represented a larger coterie of jazz- and blues-steeped professionals who felt
ignored if not purposely shut out of commercial venues, studio work under their own names and radio
airplay because they pursued the freedoms and
explorations advanced by such New York City-based
free-thinkers and avant-gardists as Albert Ayler,
Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Elvin
Jones, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and McCoy Tyner.
Attendees at the AACM’s inaugural open
meeting in May 1965, as described in A Power
Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American
Experimental Music (the authoritative history
written by member George E. Lewis), wanted to
create a practical, productive self-help group with
a central mission of supporting creative musicians. To do so, members stopped pursuing gigs
in noisy nightclubs and pulled together to stage
their own events. Abrams had a Monday night
lab band trying out original compositions mostly for the enlightenment of the participants. (His
Experimental Band, harkening to those days, will
play a special anniversary gig at the Chicago Jazz
Festival on Sept. 6.) Members organized concerts
in art galleries, lofts, coffeehouses and University
of Chicago facilities. They designed and distributed posters, sold tickets and set up an AACM
School at a community center on Chicago’s South
Side.
“It was like a musical family,” woodwind player
Roscoe Mitchell remembers. “If it was your concert,
I’d be there moving the chairs around, making sure
you were comfortable and that everything went well.
If it was my concert, you’d be there doing that for me.
I’d be excited to go see what others were doing, then
I’d run back home, practice and get ready for my
concert. We inspired each other.”
The early AACM members forged enduring connections, like those leading Mitchell, bassist Malachi
Favors, trumpeter Lester Bowie and saxophonist
Joseph Jarman to form the Art Ensemble of Chicago
(later adding drummer Famoudou Don Moye). But
there was more group interaction than band exclusivity.
In 1968, the first albums by AACM musicians—Mitchell’s Sound, Abrams’ Levels And
Degrees Of Light, Jarman’s Song For and Braxton’s
3 Compositions of New Jazz—were issued by
Chicago’s Delmark Records. The sounds presented were more self-consciously composed but just
as startlingly original as what the AACM’s East
Coast counterparts were doing. The Chicagoans’
music was distinguished by their use of toys and
unusual instruments, homemade percussion
rigs and drummer-less formats, wordless vocals,
abstract formulas, poems, attention to dynamics and inclusion of silence. For live shows, members often added interpretive dancers, their own
paintings, face paint and costumes. Of course,
their challenge of conventions was not to everyone’s taste.
In 1969, the Art Ensemble traveled to Paris,
immediately followed by Braxton, Smith, Leroy
Jenkins and Steve McCall, and had an enormous impact, accelerating the development of
the European avant-garde. When these expats
returned to the States in the early ’70s, they settled in New York (Smith chose New Haven,
Connecticut) for greater opportunities. Threadgill
and Abrams followed, as did keyboardist Amina
Claudine Myers and drummer Thurman Barker;
psychedelic-soul-rock guitarist Pete Cosey was
soon hired by Miles Davis. But a core contingent
of Chicagoans stayed where they were, and more
musicians continued to gather under the banner,
gaining experience by creating together.
Veteran tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson
extended mentorship and opportunities to
up-and-comers who performed with him at a
series of venues, most famously the Velvet Lounge.
Among them were trombonist Lewis (who joined
the group at age 19 in 1971), saxophonist Chico
Freeman (sax master Von Freeman’s son), reedist
Douglas Ewart, saxophonist Edward Wilkerson
Jr., drummer Reggie Nicholson and pianist
Adegoke Steve Colson with his wife, vocalist Iqua
Colson.
The productivity of AACM members and the
musicians they collaborated with throughout the
1970s, ’80s and ’90s—mostly on albums from boutique labels like BYG-Actuel, Arista-Novus, Black
Saint/Soul Note and Disk Union/DIW, as well
as self-productions distributed by New Music
Distribution Service, an outgrowth of Carla Bley
and Michael Mantler’s Jazz Composers Orchestra
Association—belies the impression popularized
by documentarian Ken Burns that experimentalism in jazz had fizzled. Neo-conservatism did
sweep American culture in that era; young lions,
admiring Wynton Marsalis, looked back to Duke
Ellington and hard-bop for direction. Wellfinanced jazz series and facilities arose with the
support of corporate sponsors, while the AACM
operated on members’ dues and the occasional
grant. But thanks in large part to the indefatigable, grassroots energies of AACM stalwarts, progressivism was sustained in the States and abroad.
“Organizations like the AACM are the most
powerful dimension for artists to think of, coming from the latter part of the 20th century,”
says trumpeter Smith, whose extended work Ten
Freedom Summers (Cuneiform) was a finalist for
the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music. “Organizations
are bigger than individuals, and have the potential
for significant change in our society. Most organizations excel in philosophy and words but can’t
actually perform the actions they propose. The
AACM has done the best it can. It has functioned
well as an opportunity for like-minded artists to
meet and to provide opportunities in which those
artists could function.”
Smith was among the first AACM musicians
to secure a college-level teaching position, as an
adjunct at University of New Haven in the mid1970s; last year he retired from two decades at
California Institute of the Arts. “Going into the
educational system allowed us the opportunity
to become self-sufficient and save for the future,”
he says; he also believes that “creative music offers
the greatest opportunity for employment after
music school.” He is otherwise less than sanguine
regarding the AACM in academia.
“The big dilemma,” he says, “is how much
knowledge can be provided by creative artists
within those institutions. There are not only the
hindrances from school administrators, but also
students resisting new information.” Still, many of
his AACM colleagues have thrived as educators—
in 1993 drummer Thurman Barker took over an
associate professorship at Bard College in upstate
New York that Smith had previously held—and as
teachers they’ve tended to attract talented protégés
who’ve expanded upon their endeavors.
For example, Smith’s frequent partner Braxton
taught at Mills College in Oakland, California, in
the 1980s (now Roscoe Mitchell holds the Darius
Milhaud Chair in Composition there) and became
a professor of music at Wesleyan University in
Middletown, Connecticut, in the 1990s; he retired
in 2013, having been named an NEA Jazz Master
(an honor also extended to Abrams). Braxton, a
MacArthur fellow, has established the Tri-Centric
Foundation to support his work and legacy, utilizing
the talents of his former student, cornetist Taylor Ho
Bynum, and continuing to employ ex-students such
as guitarist Mary Halvorson to perform his uniquely complex music.
Lewis, who served as assistant professor of
music at University of California, San Diego, from
1993 to 2004, is now the Edwin H. Case Professor
of American Music at Columbia University in
New York. (He was also named a Guggenheim
fellow in 2015, and like Braxton has received a
MacArthur fellowship.) Lewis’ students have
included alto saxophonist Steve Lehman and
drummer Tyshawn Sorey (both winners of Rising
Star categories in the 2015 DownBeat Critics Poll)
AACM • 50 YEARS OF FREEDOM
MICHAEL JACKSON
Jack DeJohnette
as well as pianist Courtney Bryan.
Lewis commends flutist Nicole Mitchell for
what he calls her “meteoric rise in academia.”
Recipient of a 2011 Alpert Award in the Arts,
Mitchell has been a full-fledged AACM member
since 1995, and was the organization’s first woman
president. (She remains an advocate for women
in the organization; see sidebar on page 32.) A former faculty member with the Vancouver Creative
Music Institute, the Sherwood Flute Institute, Banff
International Jazz Workshop and the University of
Illinois, Chicago, Mitchell is currently professor of
music at University of California, Irvine, teaching in
the new Integrated Composition, Improvisation and
Technology (ICIT) graduate program.
Closer to the collective’s home-base, bassoonist and saxophonist Mwata Bowden, who came
to the AACM in 1974 and served as the chair
in Chicago from 1989 to ’98, is director of jazz
ensembles at University of Chicago. His perspective on the organization’s developments in the 10
years since its 40th anniversary is insightful.
“In around 2005,” Bowden explains, “we realized that the music played by the AACM
Experimental Ensemble was no longer so ‘experimental’—it was tried and proven and now part
of the history of music as it’s evolved. Taking a
cue from the Art Ensemble’s motto ‘Great Black
Music—Ancient to the Future,’ we came up with a
new, definitive name for our big band. Now it’s the
AACM Great Black Music Ensemble, to represent
that the music is mature and many of our basic
ideas have come to fruition. We’re still looking forward but we understand what we’re talking about,
we have a vocabulary and rhetoric for it, and it’s
been recognized. If you’re going to talk about jazz
or improvised music in the U.S., now you have to
mention the contributions AACM members have
made. After 50 years we’re taking a more consolidated but still open-ended approach to new music,
whether it’s improvised or composed.”
Smith regrets that the AACM has never been
able to have its own recording studio or distribution network. “That it’s survived 50 years is
immensely worth celebration, but if you can’t
develop wealth, your impact and ability to sustain
a presence is limited,” he says. “You have to fund34 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2015
raise every time you want to do something, and
there’s a limit to foundations giving you money.”
Similarly, Bowden admits to reservations
about the AACM’s collective structure. “We’re
still run by artists,” he says. “We haven’t moved
to a corporate model or tried to be a business
machine. I’m not sure what kind of artistic changes would have occurred if we’d tried that, but we
perpetuate ourselves so that we maintain control
in a way we all find comfortable. There are individuals among us who are business-savvy about
their careers, and that kind of entrepreneurship
has been important for our longevity. But we’ve
felt it’s best to let people take on those responsibilities for themselves. Whether a more business-like
structure would be better is hard to say. But I think
we’ve remained a viable artistic resource for our
community, and our community is now really
worldwide.
“I’m sure the founders didn’t see that the AACM
was going to last 50 years,” he continues. “The average duration for artists collectives is seven years,
max. Luckily for those of us who came later, they
put things down on paper about the organization
that had the effect of bringing younger musicians
in, so a whole new crop is here with us now. Most
of the students I’ve taught at the AACM School are
open-minded thinkers, in touch with their cultural heritage and community-oriented. They’re aware
of the importance of sharing information, of giving
back for what they’ve received and of continuing to
bring in younger people.”
Indeed, Bowden has passed down the AACM
mantle directly to his son Khari B., self-described
“disco-poet” who was chair from 2011 through
May 2015. (Abrams remains the New York chapter chair.) “As unusual as our organization is—
and we’ve heard this from funders—no one can
argue that it doesn’t work,” Khari says. “We’re not
sure why it works, but it works. It may be crazy,
but so is the music. We’re sticking to our plan, and
moving forward. The interest we’ve gained from
this 50th anniversary has motivated us as an organization to continue to try new and innovative
things, to incorporate the further reaches of our
creativity.” He mentions the AACM’s Street Beat
summer series offering “healing performances”
to youth in some of Chicago’s violence-plagued
neighborhoods, and also that in fall 2015 the
AACM will open a Saturday school at Chicago’s
Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies (a campus of Northeastern Illinois University).
Saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, Khari B’s successor as AACM Chicago chair, says his vision is “to
strengthen the capacity of the organization to be viable unto itself, dealing with finances.” While grateful for support from the MacArthur Foundation
and Chicago Community Trust, he says, “I need to
do more to get more. In general, American society
doesn’t support the arts, and that’s been particularly
so when we’re talking about creative music and jazz.
But the music continues to evolve, and the AACM
has been a catalyst.”
How does one get to be an AACM member?
“Well, the Chicago and New York chapters are two
separate entities,” Dawkins says, “but we adhere
to pretty much the same principles. Come to our
concerts—that’s the first thing. Hang out. Let
members get to know you. Get a member-sponsor,
write a letter, put on a concert that’s sometimes
private but usually public. The AACM has never
meant to promote one certain aesthetic approach,
and now we’ve got young people in the organization, about a dozen members in their 30s, who are
bringing in more electronics, rap and hip-hop, the
contemporary vibe.”
Audiences will have plenty of opportunities to
enjoy music by AACM artists in 2015. In Chicago
alone, there are dozens of musical presentations
scheduled in the coming months. One venue for
them is ex-AACM chair Mike Reed’s performance
space Constellation. In addition, the DuSable
Museum has mounted the exhibit “Free at First:
The Audacious Journey of the AACM,” co-curated by long-affiliated Janis Lane-Ewart, full of
singular instruments, photos and lore; it runs
through Sept. 6. The Museum of Contemporary
Art’s exhibit “The Freedom Principle” (named
after jazz journalist John Litweiler’s book) features
musical installations, graphic scores and artifacts,
plus live performances. It runs through Nov. 11.
In New York, the AACM has scheduled anniversary concerts on four Fridays in October,
underwritten by a $25,000 matching grant from
the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation.
As to why the AACM has endured longer than
any comparable artists-run non-profit collective, “It’s because of our principles,” says reedist
Henry Threadgill, recent recipient of a Doris Duke
Impact Award. “The AACM offers musicians and
especially composers encouragement to create
your own music. To work it out, define it and get
the support from the people in the organization
so you can play it and support one another. Why
would you run away from principles like that?”
Roscoe Mitchell agrees. “I’ve always felt that it
would go on, and I’ve always liked the comfort that
I get from it,” he reflects. “I could always say I’m a
member of the AACM, and that means something
in the world. Here it is the 50th anniversary, and
I don’t know where the time went. All of us have
been playing together a lot throughout these years.
Some of my greatest experiences were hanging out
with Threadgill, being in the Experimental Band,
being first dean of the AACM School. It seems like
not that long ago, although I guess it was.”
DB
AACM as Opera
eorge E. Lewis, an AACM member since 1971, is the most comprehensive
documentarian of the AACM. His authoritative history A Power
Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
won the 2008 American Book Award. For the AACM’s 50th anniversary,
Lewis has transformed portions of that text, which includes compelling oral
history, into the libretto for Afterword: The AACM (as) Opera.
Excerpts from the chamber work’s first act, vividly sung by Chicagoans Julian
Terrell Otis, Gwendolyn Brown and Joelle Lamarre—accompanied by members
of the International Chamber Ensemble (ICE) conducted by David Fulmer—were
previewed last May at Roulette in Brooklyn; a full production will be staged at
the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago on Oct. 16–17. As presented in
the concert version without its planned multimedia components, Afterword is a
challenging work—feisty in tone, thick with nuance and detail.
Its story veers from stark descriptions of racism in the South—which
pushed the families of first-wave AACM members north in the Great
Migration—to intense debates derived from transcripts of AACM meetings
in 1965 concerning fine points of policy that have affected the group’s
trajectory from then until now. The through-composed score, fleshed out
by interludes that ICE performed of Lewis’ 1977 composition “Shadowgraph
5,” is a kaleidoscope of lines and textures underplaying melodic motifs or
pulsating rhythms, yet arriving at dramatic peaks. Its ideal audience is almost
by definition AACM devotees, as a climax revolves around whether the artists
collective should be named for creative music or creative musicians.
“This opera wasn’t my idea,” said Lewis, a trombonist, electronic and
computer music innovator, and Columbia University professor. “In 2010, I
was a resident scholar at the Franke Institute for the Humanities at University
of Chicago. James Chandler, the director of the institute, mentioned during
a discussion we had that he thought A Power Stronger Than Itself would be
George E. Lewis
MICHAEL JACKSON
G
great as some sort of play, because of the voices that populate the book. It
occurred to me that these voices, especially of some of the older generation
such as Muhal [Richard Abrams], Steve McCall and Eugene Easton, were
indeed very poetic, intensely coherent and logically beautiful. In 2014,
my collaborators Sean Griffin and Catherine Sullivan came to the same
conclusion: that the book could provide the substance of an opera of ideas.
That’s how Afterword happened.
“I’m interested in opera singing, and quite moved by these singers.
It’s particularly interesting to me to have people from the South Side of
Chicago singing their history. I think of that as connecting generations.”
The composer himself will perform on Oct. 9 in an all-acoustic brass-andpercussion concert with Tyshawn Sorey, Eli Fountain and Thurman Barker as
part of the New York City AACM chapter’s 50th anniversary series, at a venue
to be announced.
—Howard Mandel
TERELL STAFFORD
PHILADELPHIA
SOUL
BY PHILLIP LUTZ
howtime was an hour away and Terell
Stafford was buzzing. Grabbing a spot
on the long bench in the rear of the
Village Vanguard, the trumpeter, whose
quintet would soon command the stage, was
fully engaged in the evening’s preparations—
from running down the set list to securing the
placement of promotional cards on the tables—
even as he chatted about his life and career.
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
S
TERELL STAFFORD • PHILADELPHIA SOUL
Stafford has long known what makes the
Vanguard cook, having spent many a Monday
night playing in its resident Vanguard Jazz
Orchestra and, in March 2011, stepping out as
a leader when a weeklong engagement built
around his album This Side Of Strayhorn
(MaxJazz)—perhaps the definitive quintet take
on Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s alter ago—
became a high-profile affair, generating favorable press and drawing him into the spotlight.
Now, on a hot June night, Stafford was back to
lead another tribute—this one to an artist who, in
some ways, was his own alter ego: Lee Morgan.
The similarities between the two trumpeters
were hard to ignore. They shared an association
with Philadelphia (Morgan a native son, Stafford
an adopted one) and aspects of a language (the
soulful side of bebop and its variants). But first
and foremost—according to John Clayton, the
bassist, bandleader and producer of BrotherLee
Love (Capri),Stafford’s new Morgan-heavy collection—they shared “the fire.”
That was immediately evident as Stafford—
joined by tenor saxophonist Tim Warfield, pianist Bruce Barth, bassist Peter Washington and
drummer Billy Williams—brought the spirits
blazingly to life in the cool, dark basement. It
was the fourth of the residency’s six nights, the
hinge night. And, in Warfield’s words, “It was a
joyous experience.”
The program had varied little from night to
night, drawing tunes and their basic treatment
directly from BrotherLee Love. Like the album,
the set opened with a sizzling “Hocus Pocus,”
originally from 1964’s The Sidewinder, Morgan’s
biggest seller and the album that essentially set
the stage for boogaloo-inflected efforts like “Yes
I Can, No You Can’t,” from 1966’s The Gigolo,
which closed Stafford’s set.
Leavening the mix were “Mr. Kenyatta,”
whose slick rhythmic shifts rivaled those of
Morgan with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock
on 1964’s Search For The New Land; a sultry “Candy,”
the title tune of Morgan’s 1958 survey of standards,
rendered at a slow burn; and the easy shuffle of “Petty
Larceny,” a minor blues from The Freedom Rider, Art
Blakey’s 1961 ode to civil rights crusaders (released
during Morgan’s stretch with the Jazz Messengers).
Throughout the set, the 48-year-old Stafford
proved an instrumentalist in complete control, his
cadence established by series of sparkling eighthnote runs punctuated by strikingly executed textural effects, notable among them a mean growl.
His tone covered the spectrum, from the blaringly bright to the deeply dark. All of it was offered
without a trace of irony.
“He plays what he means,” Barth said.
In that, the set recalled the recording session.
Clayton, who in addition to producing for Stafford
employs him in the Clayton Brothers Quintet,
PHILIPPE LÉVY-STAB
Terell Stafford's training in classical
music has influenced his jazz albums.
explained that he did not want the kind of stopand-start routine in which each tune was dissected in the control room before the band
moved on. “That can sap the continuity of making music,” he said.
Rather, he said, he was seeking a session akin
to the performance turned in by the quintet in its
week at the Vanguard in May of last year, right
before they recorded BrotherLee Love. “When I
listened to them, there was great energy, concentration, communication,” he said. “I thought, ‘We
can’t lose this. We don’t want to destroy this.’”
And they didn’t. The group moved seamlessly
from the Vanguard bandstand on Sunday to
Brooklyn’s Systems Two Recording Studio on
Monday. “They recorded one song after another as though they were in the Vanguard,” Clayton
recalled. “Then we had a listening session, and if
they thought they wanted to do a second take on
anything, they did. But most things were great the
way they were.”
The idea for the tribute arose after Stafford
and the group—Dana Hall was the drummer at the time—performed a concert devoted to Morgan’s music at the Kimmel Center for
the Performing Arts in Philadelphia in February
2012. For the concert, Stafford recruited a student
at Temple University, where he is director of jazz
studies and chairman of instrumental studies, to
transcribe about 15 Morgan pieces. Stafford and
Warfield worked through the melodies at Temple
“until they came together,” he said.
They decided, by and large, to hew closely to
Morgan’s original arrangements, though the wisdom of doing so had not been immediately obvious. In rehearsal, Stafford said, the band tried
to reimagine those arrangements. “Nothing
worked,” he said. “So we were all like, ‘This is a
sign: Leave it alone and play the music.’
“We get charged as jazz musicians to get
super creative with things that are innovative.
But sometimes it’s just best to honor what came
before you, and do it in your way and in your
voice and in your style.”
When Clayton entered the picture, he had reservations about the approach. “At first,” he said,
“I thought, ‘Shouldn’t we rework this? Shouldn’t
we do our best to rearrange it and put our own
thumbprint on it?’ Then I realized, ‘No, our own
thumbprint is on it anyway, in that they are
doing their best to find what they defined as the
magic of the original recordings. It was almost
retro, and kind of cool that they were not doing
what everybody else was doing.”
Just as the band emulated the original
arrangements, Stafford said he patterned aspects
of his instrumental approach on Morgan’s. “There
are certain ways he played the horn that were
really exciting,” he said. “That is what has always
touched me about him. There’s soulfulness in
everything he plays. Listen to him on the original of ‘Moment’s Notice,’” he said, referring to the
harmonically rich John Coltrane tune from the
1957 Blue Note album Blue Train. “There’s still
soulfulness, even as he’s navigating through these
chord changes.”
Stafford noted that Morgan and Coltrane
both developed blues-inflected voices shaped by
Philadelphia. “It’s a very soulful city,” he said,
“where everything you’re surrounded with is
about the blues. You’re drenched in it.
“I remember Shirley Scott playing complicated songs,” Stafford continued, referring to
the Philadelphia organist who became a major
influence on him after Warfield introduced
the two musicians. “She would always, always
incorporate the blues, which was like the soulful element beyond soulful. It was tangible. The
people loved it.”
All around the city, he and Warfield found
that audiences craved the soulful approach,
whether they were playing the jazz club Ortlieb’s
or in the Scott-led house band for the short-lived
game show You Bet Your Life, which was taped in
Philadelphia. “They wanted to hear your soul, not
your intellect. Don’t come to impress them with a
bunch of fancy things you worked out in a practice room. Come and play from your heart. That’s
what Philadelphia taught me.”
Like many of the city’s best young players,
Stafford served apprenticeships of sorts with an
array of local legends, among them Mickey Roker,
Bootsie Barnes and Jimmy Oliver, in addition to
Scott. “When they called
it the City of Brotherly
Love, there was a reason,” Stafford said.
“There was such a sense
of family, so many musicians who were open
and willing to show you
things and allow you to
come into their world.
That really set my career
on a path.”
For Stafford, the
path to Philadelphia had
been a circuitous one.
A native of Miami, he
went to middle school
in Chicago before moving to Maryland, where
he attended high school
and did his undergraduate study at the University of Maryland. There,
he almost abandoned music when a professor
told him that his propensity for playing on the
side of his mouth would limit his playing life.
“The day I graduated I put my trumpet in the
case and I became a computer programmer for an
insurance company,” he said. The year was 1988.
Later that year, however, he received an invitation to hear the Eastman Wind Ensemble at the
Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with
Wynton Marsalis as the featured soloist. Marsalis,
in a short interview, said he pointed Stafford to his
teacher, William Fielder, whom Stafford credited with convincing him to return to the trumpet.
Fielder (who died in 2009) told him to play as he
saw fit. Among Stafford's cherished instruments
today is Fielder’s gold-plated Mount Vernon Bach
trumpet from the 1950s.
At first, Stafford studied privately with Fielder.
But the lessons were costly, he said, and it made
economic sense for him to enroll at Rutgers
University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where
Fielder was on the classical faculty. To be within shouting distance of Rutgers, Stafford said,
he found accommodations in Downington,
Pennsylvania. At that point, he met Warfield, who
invited him to jams in nearby York. A lifelong
relationship was born.
“The jams with Tim were what really taught
me jazz,” he said. Warfield suggested that they
learn a few tunes and play them at jam sessions.
“‘We’ll be a team forever,’ he said. I thought,
‘This guy’s crazy.’ But we learned ‘Autumn
Leaves,’ ‘Straight, No Chaser,’ ‘Miles’ Theme,’
‘Misty.’ We went out to jams. And people started hiring us as a team.”
The first gigs, Warfield said, were in central
Pennsylvania haunts like Lucky Seven Tavern in
Harrisburg. In the years since, the relationship
has deepened and, in the June set at the Vanguard,
seemed to have become almost telepathic, their
trading bringing to mind a couple who finish
each other’s sentences. While their language was
not identical—Warfield, for starters, roamed a
bit more consistently outside the changes—the
tone of the musical conversation was a near-perfect blend, the bells of their horns seemingly
intertwined.
“We have this weird
kind of thing together,”
Stafford said. “When we
play a melody, we don’t
have to talk about things
too much. We just listen to each other and fit
into each other’s sounds.
I’ve never played with
an individual who’s that
easy to play with.”
Clayton,
suitably
impressed, coined a term
to describe the musicians’ sonic melding.
“It doesn’t sound like a
trumpet or sax,” he said.
“It sounds like a ‘traxophone’ or something.”
As
it
happens,
Stafford’s ability to
reach inside the mind—and horn—of a colleague
extends beyond Warfield, Clayton said. It applies
as well to his front-line relationship with saxophonist Jeff Clayton in the brothers’ quintet.
“I hear them constantly talking about intonation, tone color, about how to alter their own playing to fit with the other person,” Clayton said. “I
hear my brother saying, ‘Don’t change. I’ll change
my notes to blend with you.’ Or I hear Terell saying, ‘Let me hear what you’re doing there. I’m not
quite getting your phrasing and articulation.’”
For Stafford, developing such sensitivity on
jazz turf took time. “I went through a long period where people made fun of me,” he said, noting
that he had found it difficult to shake the rhythms
of his training in the European classics. “People
called me ‘Haydn’ because I sounded like I was
playing a Haydn trumpet concerto every time I
played jazz. I really had a hard time with the concept of swing.”
At Rutgers, he said, a lack of knowledge of
tunes and basic jazz language compounded his
problems. When he approached the jazz faculty
about being admitted to the master’s program, he
‘THEY WANTED
TO HEAR YOUR
SOUL, NOT YOUR
INTELLECT.
COME AND
PLAY FROM
YOUR HEART.
THAT'S WHAT
PHILADELPHIA
TAUGHT ME.’
TERELL STAFFORD • PHILADELPHIA SOUL
about discipline. He warms up and warms
down after a set. He has a great understanding
of detail, the way he chooses to articulate with
whoever he is playing with. And he has a very
noble, regal sort of sound. It’s like, ‘Listen here.’
You stop and look up.”
Keeping up that sound requires diligence;
Stafford admits to being “fanatical” about
adhering to a practice regimen. Nonetheless,
he is branching out further, beyond his playing and university teaching. He has accepted a
position as managing and artistic director of
the nonprofit Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia
to lead such an effort in Philadelphia because
he is a “great trumpet player and a great teacher
with an array of skills.”
The Philadelphia orchestra often plays the
music of artists with connections to that city,
like Morgan, Scott, Jimmy Heath and Benny
Golson, who was the featured soloist at a concert at the Kimmel Center in May. The band’s
roster includes musicians with Philadelphia
ties, including Warfield; bassist Lee Smith,
Christian McBride’s father; and trumpeter
Nick Marchione, a longtime section mate of
Stafford’s in the Vanguard orchestra.
Stafford said he envisions a growing educational role for the orchestra. “I want the
band not only to represent the music but
Stafford's album BrotherLee Love is a tribute to Lee Morgan.
to reach out to the youth in Philadelphia—
to teach and mentor.” Along the same lines,
Stafford is in his fifth year as director of an
all-city band of high school students.
With all the activity, Stafford has not
devoted as much time as he’d like to writing. “Favor,” the sole Stafford original on
BrotherLee Love, was written on commission.
Drawing obliquely on “Amazing Grace,” the
piece opens with an unaccompanied trumpet solo that offers some of the most technically and emotionally demanding playing on
the album.
“It fit in beautifully,” Barth said.
For Stafford, writing is not simply a matter of creative expression. It helps him make
sense of, and overcome, dyslexia: “The best
way for me to get through this disease,” he
said, “is to challenge it.” In the future, he
said, writing could be a very specific means
of expressing his appreciation to people who
have helped him. He said he hopes to write a
piece for each one.
Meanwhile, he is working to overcome
other challenges, not least prejudice in
the academic community. “There were
some folks who weren’t really happy that
I became the head of the classical department,” he said. “‘What is this jazz guy
doing? He doesn’t know anything about
classical.’ But in fact, I probably had more
experience playing classical than I did jazz
when I started.”
That kind of attitude may be waning,
Clayton said, suggesting that Stafford quite
possibly has been at the forefront of the
change. “He might be an early example of
what I believe is a sign of the times,” he said.
“I’m finding that more and more young people are not allowing themselves to be pigeondespite some initial hesitance because of the holed. It’s just music. There are so many influences
additional administrative and fundraising you can embrace now that it’s getting harder and
duties the job entails.
harder for people to categorize you. I’m ready for
“My first instinct was: ‘I don’t think so. I these walls to come down.”
have enough to do at Temple, in my own quinBy his own admission, Stafford spent his
tet,’” he said. “But the person who told me I youthful years building walls of his own, even as
should do it was Wynton Marsalis. He went, ‘Do his father wanted him to play jazz. “I would dabble
it. I’m here to help you.’ So I did it.”
in it,” he said, “but my peers were playing classiMarsalis said the project was important cal music. I didn’t want to be the one who was difbecause “we need to bring jazz into the com- ferent. So to fit in and conform, that’s what I did.
munity”; Jazz at Lincoln Center, he noted, is
“It was later in life that I found out that the
expanding its community outreach beyond best musicians play both things—classical, jazz, it
New York City. Stafford, he added, is equipped doesn’t matter.”
DB
PHILIPPE LÉVY-STAB
was turned down. Still, he continued to work on
his jazz chops, which advanced considerably after
a chance meeting with Clark Terry, who taught
him about doodle tonguing. That “opened my
world,” he said, and led naturally to the swing he
seems to display so effortlessly today.
Developing as a jazz player while studying the
classical curriculum at Rutgers proved to have a
downside. Stafford became proficient enough to
land a gig with saxophonist Bobby Watson, but
the gig necessitated touring and, in requesting a
leave from his studies, he misrepresented Watson’s
group to school authorities as a classical chamber
ensemble, inviting a suspension. Looking back, he
regrets the misrepresentation.
“If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t do that,”
he said.
He returned to school after a year—“panicked,” he said, “because I knew that if I didn’t finish my courses, my parents would have a meltdown”—and earned a master’s degree in classical
trumpet performance in 1993. Despite the suspension, he said his time at Rutgers had been
well spent—and Warfield agreed.
“The clarity he has on the instrument relates
to his classical training,” Warfield said. “It’s
R
E
T
N
U
H
E
I
L
CHAR
E
V
O
O
GR OR
T
C
A
F
I
K
S
W
O
IL K
M
I
L
K
L
S
I
B
W
O
BY
K
L
O
L
U
A
P
Y
PH OTO B
hen Charlie Hunter locks into a
groove with his custom-made
seven-string Jeff Traugott guitar, he
gets so deep in the pocket that he can pull a
band along with him like swimmers caught in
a riptide. And the bass notes issuing from his
hybrid beast are so low you can feel them in
your chest. Indeed, this kind of resounding,
authoritative groove has been at the heart of
Hunter’s music since his formative days on
the Bay Area scene. “That’s just what I grew
up listening to, it’s where I come from,” said
the 48-year-old guitarist, who resides in New
W
Jersey with his wife and two children. “That
was Berkeley in the ’70s and ’80s. Funk was
the rhythm that we all played. I don’t think
we knew to call it that, but that was the vibe.
And it didn’t matter if it was a shuffle or a
country beat, it had to be funky.”
That heavy Bay Area groove factor has
enlivened Hunter’s music for almost 25 years,
going back to his 1993 debut, Charlie Hunter
Trio, and continuing through more than 30
albums as a leader or co-leader for the Blue
Note, Ropeadope and Thirsty Ear labels as
well as his own Charlie Hunter Music.
Curtis Fowlkes (left), Charlie Hunter and Bobby Previte
collaborated on the new album Let The Bells Ring On.
His latest potent trio outing, Let The Bells Ring
On, is a collaboration with seasoned veterans
Curtis Fowlkes on trombone and Bobby Previte
on drums. Together, they navigate different
aspects of groove on tunes like the frantically uptempo “Pho-Kus-On-Ho-Ho-Kus,” the slow-moving street beat number “Vernel” or the jangly
opener “Anthem: USA.”
“To play with someone like Charlie, who’s got
the groove on lockdown, it really frees me up,” said
Previte. “He’s a self-propelled kind of guy. And I’m
just adding to the propulsion rather than propelling it myself, which is always great if you can do
it. Basically, I hear things and I like to color what’s
going on. That’s what I do: I color the groove. I
think Charlie enjoys that I’m bringing something
that is not just about specific beats assigned to specific tunes. I do what I feel and Charlie seems to
think that’s cool. And I get to do what I like best.”
Though Previte has been known as one of New
York’s prime downtown composer-bandleaders for the past 30 years, he does have some history
in playing shuffles and grooves. “I played five sets
with [blues guitarist-singer] Bobby Radcliffe every
Saturday night for years. That’s where I cut my teeth
on that style of music. We’d play for the tip jar, which
was sumptuous at the end of the night. He had such a
huge repertoire and I fine-tuned my blues and shuffle playing on that gig.”
Although Hunter and Previte had previously
played together in the improvising cooperative
duo Groundtruther, the guitarist had something
else in mind for this particular trio. “I called Bobby
and said, ‘Dude, I want to hire Bobby Previte the
drummer.’ Because Bobby Previte the composer
and the conceptual artist … that’s a huge part of
who he is. But Bobby Previte the drummer is overlooked way too often. When I was thinking about
this music, where I’m coming from is not really
a chops-oriented kind of jazz so much, it’s more
coming from a blues and r&b base, but with the
ability to improvise as well. You can find maybe a
few younger generation players who can do that,
but really not so much. It’s not their thing. But
Bobby cut his teeth playing the rock songs on the
PAUL OLKOWKSI
Hunter spent part of his youth in Berkeley, California.
radio in the ’60s. Here’s a guy who saw Hendrix
when he was 15 years old. I mean, this is where
he’s coming from. And he played with Johnny
Copeland and Albert Collins. This is a dude who
knows that music, but he’s also a consummate
improvisor and composer. And so I started there.”
Next came the idea of adding trombonist
Fowlkes as the third member of the trio. “Curtis and
I go back a ways,” Hunter said. (Fowlkes played on
the guitarist’s 2003 quintet album Right Now Move.)
“Originally I thought it would be nice to a have a
band with a singer, but every time I’ve tried to do that
under my own name it didn’t really work for me so
well. So I thought, ‘How close can I come to a singer?'
And naturally I thought of Curtis. His personality
in what he does with the trombone is like getting to
have a Paul Foster [from the Soul Stirrers] or David
Ruffin [of The Temptations] who can also improvise
and deal with jazz music.
“I’ve played with some of the young trombone
chops guys, and they all love Curtis,” he added.
“As they should. He has so much history and feeling that it goes way beyond chops. I think it was
Henry Threadgill who said it best, that Curtis
cracks notes better than some people play them. I
would have to agree with that.”
Both Previte and Fowlkes heap equal praise
on Hunter, who has been confounding guitar aficionados for several years with his hybrid axe—
which combines the lower three strings of a bass
and the middle four strings of a guitar—and
unorthodox technique. His uncanny ability to
play independent bass lines against guitar comping and melodic lines can be a bit disorienting to
the uninitiated. “It’s really not the independence
but the interdependence of bass lines and chords
and melody,” Hunter explained. “And that idea got
me going back and listening to the music that my
mom liked—records by Mississippi John Hurt,
Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Blake and Joseph Spence.
All the Piedmont stuff and the Delta stuff, all that
contrapuntal guitar playing that just kills. So I listened to that and I was like, ‘OK, this is what my
instrument is supposed to do.’ It’s more about the
interdependence and the groove and the feel than
it is about anything else.”
There can be a downside to performing two
instrumental functions in one, according to
Hunter. “It’s not flashy,” he said. And while there
is a bit of flash on Let The Bells Ring On—particularly on Hunter’s hyper chicken-picking showcase,
“Hillbilly Heroine Chic”—the guitarist is content
to lay back and let the music just feel good.
This patient, less-is-more approach is something that Hunter simply wouldn’t have been able
to fathom when he was looking to make a name for
himself on the Bay Area scene. “When I was starting out, there was a real premium put on chops
and being able to really shred on your instrument
in a linear fashion,” he recalled. “And so I thought,
‘Man, this is what I have to do!’ And I was into
it because I was young. When you’re young you
want to be just exploding in all directions. I actually played with Ronald Shannon Jackson once
when I was 22. I was in that group Disposable
Heroes of Hiphoprisy and we were playing at
Yankee Stadium opening up for U2 [on 1992’s
Zoo TV tour]. And my friend Don called me and
said, ‘If you get some time, come by and play with
Ronald Shannon Jackson at this jam we’re doing.’
It was at a crazy rehearsal space across from the
Port Authority. So I went down there, and I was
just awful. I played horribly … too many notes
and just garbage, you know? I was playing like a
22-year-old kid who was trying to impress. And
afterwards, my friend was like, ‘Dude, why did
you play all that bullshit?’
“But as I got older I started to realize I’m never
gonna be a jazz guitar player like Russell Malone
or Kurt Rosenwinkel. I just don’t have that ability on my instrument. I probably couldn’t even do
that on a six-string guitar. And I’m never going to
be a super techy bass player because I don’t have
an affinity for that, either. So then I realized, ‘Why
am I trying so hard to put so many things in here?’
And there came a point where I just stopped trying
to play in an opportunistic way where I’m always
thinking, ‘Lemme do that baddest shit right here,’
and sacrifice the groove for that. It sounds bad
when I try to play shit that’s hard for me to play …
stuff that doesn’t make sense for me to play. I overplay stuff and it’s just a mess.
“So now, instead, I think, ‘Let’s think about
the right hand more than the left hand. Think
about the flow and the groove and how that feels,
and sacrifice everything for that.’ And I’m still
working on getting it better because I still have
serious holes that need to be filled. It’s such a hardass instrument to play, and it takes a lot of time.”
Elsewhere on Let The Bells Ring On, the trio
hits a catchy mode on “Welcome To Nutley,” which
could serve as the theme song for a sitcom. From
that snappy affair, the trio leaps headlong into a
spacious abyss on the evocative, slow-moving
bolero “Fellini Farm Team,” which is underscored
by Previte’s haunting mallet work and Hunter’s
rolling arpeggios. Pink Floyd fans will certainly hear a similarity here to the classic “Us And
Them” on this spacy anthem. “Ojai House Coat
Of Arms” is a crazy, boisterous groover fueled by
Previte’s slamming rock backbeat before settling
into a classic Motown feel. “Vernel” (named for
the late New Orleans drummer Vernel Fournier,
who authored the classic “Poinciana” beat in his
days with the Ahmad Jamal Trio) is a slow-grooving street beat vehicle that features strong playing by Fowlkes and a brilliantly melodic solo by
Previte. “I wanted to capture Vernel’s vibe on this
tune because his feel is just breathtaking,” Hunter
explained. “If I could ever achieve a feel like that
on my instrument, I would just be like, ‘All right,
it was all worth it.’ Vernel is incredible.”
The program closes with the whimsical waltz
“Spence,” dedicated to the eccentric fingerstyle
guitarist Joseph Spence, a huge influence on
Hunter’s own approach to his axe. “Talk about
flow!” Hunter said. “Talk about a rhythmic thing
that just won’t stop on the guitar. That’s some of
the baddest stuff ever.”
A groovemeister to his core, Hunter has had a
special affinity for drums throughout his career. He
keeps a kit at home and plays every day, though he
remains humble about his abilities. “I’m the world’s
worst local amateur drummer,” he said. “I don’t play
drums really great. I can play a nice funk groove,
though. But that’s all I want to do.”
Some of Hunter’s drumming partners over time
have included Leon Parker (their 1999 Blue Note collaboration, Duo, set the template for the guitarist’s
future duo encounters with drummers), Bay Area
icon Mike Clark, session drummer Bernard Purdie
(they had a memorable one-off gig at Iridium a few
years back) and his longstanding Bay Area colleague
Scott Amendola, who played on two recent duo
recordings with Hunter, 2012’s Not Getting Behind Is
The New Getting Ahead and 2013’s Pucker.
“What I always look for in drummers is that
they have a perfect blend of the visceral and the
intellectual,” Hunter said. “Leon definitely had
that. I remember once when we were touring and
I saw him do like a 15-minute solo with just a bass
drum, a snare drum and a little ride cymbal. Scott
Amendola and I have been playing together forever. We have this duo thing that we probably will
do forever, off and on. And Bobby is just amazing. We started off as a duo and it was completely
improvised. Then we had the idea of adding a different third person every time we played. We had
a semi-regular gig at the Knitting Factory; every
three months we would do four or five nights and
it would be a different person every night. We got a
chance to play with people I never would’ve really
had a chance to play with, like Oliver Lake, Randy
Brecker, Uri Caine, DJ Olive, DJ Logic, Jane Ira
Bloom, Ray Anderson and Lew Soloff. Bobby and
I established a tight, intuitive chemistry on those
gigs, and now to have him in the trio is such a great
experience. He just brings so much to the table
every time we play.”
“When you get to be this age, you’re just you,”
said Previte, 64, about his playing in Hunter’s current trio. “That’s who you are. I do what I do and
it’s not for everybody, but Charlie likes it and we
have a good time together. I’m not leading the
band, none of that pressure’s there.”
“I hire people that I don’t tell what to do,” added
Hunter. “Because why would I tell them what to do?
You just hire the right people and let them do what
they do. Bobby and Curtis are a generation ahead of
me, and I had been a fan of their music. So to be able
to play with them is a treat because they both know
exactly what to do with this material.”
According to Hunter, there are fringe benefits
to the lengthy rides to gigs in his car: “Curtis is
one of the best storytellers, and he can really get
on a roll when we’re just driving for hours to a gig
somewhere. So between him and Bobby, it definitely is a serious education.
“Almost every group I ever had, I never wanted to be ‘the leader,’ Hunter continued. “But
because of the crazy instrument that I play, it kind
of put me in situations where, ‘Well, if you wanna
work at this, you have to be a leader and make your
own band, ’cause no one’s gonna hire you because
it’s such a weird thing you do and it takes up too
much space.’ There’s no way out for them if you
really suck. So I keep practicing, trying to get better at what I do. That’s the goal. And it never ends.
I practice and I record myself and listen to it later
and I’m like, ‘Well, you know, you still suck. Keep
working on that groove thing because it’s still not
as great as you think it is.’”
Regarding his role in Hunter’s trio, Fowlkes
said, “It’s fun and it’s challenging, but Charlie’s
also very cool and loose about it during the playing, so he’s not obsessing about things. He likes
to explore stuff. And that’s a good thing for me
because it takes a lot of the pressure off of being
in such a small situation. I’m not usually in such a
revealing situation like this. So it’s good to be in it
with Charlie, a person who would let that happen
and enjoy the exploration along the way.”
You can hear their collective exploration on
Let The Bells Ring On, or experience it live on the
trio’s tour through the remainder of 2015. That’s
DB
where the music really opens up.
INDIE LIFE
MICHAEL BENEDICT
spotlighting a
Forgotten Star
By Kirk Silsbee / Photo by Rudy Lu
M
ost albums are sonic stepping-stones on an artist’s career path.
Occasionally there are recorded statements that become milestones for the artist, and maybe the genre as a whole. More exceptional is the album that is artistic destiny. That’s the case with drummer and
vibraphonist Michael Benedict’s new album, Circulation: The Music Of Gary
McFarland on the Planet Arts label.
The fifth CD under Benedict’s name, it comes at a pivotal point in his
career. “I’m just now retiring from teaching,” Benedict said, referring to his
faculty position at Greenville High School, near Albany, New York.
Each of his albums has featured music by the maverick composer
McFarland (1933–’71), culminating in the new tribute CD. “I’ve played a lot
of his compositions,” Benedict said. “His music has become an obsession.”
It might seem unusual that a contemporary musician would be so taken
with the work of an artist who had relatively a short career that ended about
45 years ago. However, McFarland’s legacy intersects with the drummer’s
personal and musical trajectory. “He put a special spin on things,” Benedict
said. “The vibraphone was Gary’s primary instrument, not piano. He had a
real gift for melody—even in arrangements of other people’s tunes. He wrote
melodically first and harmonically second.”
McFarland’s orchestrations seemed to have an extra palette of pastel colors and softened textures. The bossa nova sounds of the early ’60s had a profound impact on him. “Gary wrote differently for the orchestra,” Benedict
explained. “He played vibes with a light touch and he approached the orchestra in the same way. That, along with the fact that he was largely self-taught,
made him unique and identifiable.”
Benedict, 59, was born and raised in Rome, in central New York. At 16,
his dad took him to hear the Stan Kenton Orchestra. “I heard Peter Erskine
playing the drums, and that was it for me,” Benedict recalled. “When I saw
him, he was 18—two years older than me. I was floored that someone could
play that way at that age.”
At the State University of New York at Potsdam’s Crane School of Music,
Benedict ran with a jazz minority that included tenor saxophonist Loren
Schoenberg and pianist Pete Malinverni. The student ensembles were invaluable to the Benedict’s development, but he still earned a teaching degree.
Though it ultimately proved to be a prescient move, Benedict played and
toured for 10 years as a working drummer. His activities usually centered
in upstate New York; then, in 1987, he moved to New York City and freelanced with Malinverni and Schoenberg, among others. From 1988 to 2000,
Benedict played drums in the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.
In 1979, Benedict met Gail McFarland, the composer’s widow, and two
years later they were married. The couple raised Gail’s two children from her
marriage to Gary. While Benedict had heard the name, he wasn’t familiar
McFarland’s music at the time.
McFarland was a gifted composer/arranger who got serious about music
in his early twenties. Herb Pomeroy and John Lewis gave him early assignments. The Gerry Mulligan Concert band played McFarland’s first high-profile pieces. He subsequently collaborated with Stan Getz, Anita O’Day, Steve
Kuhn and Bill Evans, flirted with pop music and recorded an ambitious suite,
America The Beautiful, which mixed jazz with rock and orchestral music. For
such a short career, McFarland had quite a varied output.
With guitarist Gabor Szabo and vibraphonist Cal Tjader, McFarland
started the short-lived Skye Records label. It was a notable inroad into the
idea of an artist-owned recording venture.
During his marriage, Benedict gained insight into McFarland’s musical
outlook: “Gail told me Gary was a state champion high school quarterback
Michael Benedict
in Oregon,” he pointed out. “She said he thought of an orchestra in terms of a
team on a field, so to speak.”
Gail was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and died three years later. In that
period, Benedict curtailed his music career entirely to care for her.
“After she passed,” Benedict said with a sigh, “I started playing again; I
started my Boptitude band.” Though there were nods to McFarland’s music
on Benedict’s albums, they reflected a hard-bop bent.
Kristian St. Claire’s documentary This is Gary McFarland (now available
in a CD-and-DVD package) has generated interest in McFarland’s compositions, so for Benedict, the time was right to record a tribute. When his money
was secure (he used his own savings to finance the album) and he felt his
playing was up to it, he began developing the program for Circulation.
Thomas Bellino, whose non-profit Planet Arts label had released the last
two Boptitude albums, was crucial in bringing Circulation into being. A
Grammy-nominated producer (for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s 2014 disc
Overtime: The Music Of Bob Brookmeyer), Bellino deliberated with Benedict
on how to approach McFarland’s music.
They agreed that in order to underscore the timeless appeal of
McFarland’s tunes, they needed 21st-century voices to interpret it. Young
saxophonist Sharel Cassity augmented Boptitude’s core group of pianist
Bruce Barth, bassist Mike Lawrence and drummer Benedict.
“I wanted Bruce to arrange the material,” Benedict explained. “He was
very respectful of Gary’s music and its original intent, but I wanted him to
put his own stamp on it. After all, it’s 45 years since his death and a lot has
happened in jazz in that time.”
Bellino brought in vibraphonist Joe Locke for the sessions. “He’s my
favorite vibes player,” Benedict said, “and one of the best to ever play the
instrument. To watch him play and listen to him was so extraordinary.”
Circulation was clearly a labor of love for those involved. But that doesn’t
mean that Bellino could completely ignore the realities of the jazz marketplace in 2015. “Things are changing so fast in the recording industry,” Bellino
conceded, “that we don’t make many records. Planet Arts is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit [organization], and we help artists get their product made: recording, production, distribution and promotion. We get paid up front and they
make their money on the back end.”
If Circulation does well, Benedict’s next ambition is to make a big band
DB
album devoted to McFarland’s compositions.
INDIE LIFE
MICHAEL GRIFFIN
Perseverance
Pays Off
By Bob Doerschuk / Photo by Bridget Arnwine
I
n 2013, alto saxophonist Michael Griffin treat- Jimmy Heath even had me to his home in
ed himself to a trip to New York City. Though Queens and gave me a picture of himself with
he was only in his early twenties, he had Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. Getting his
already reached the peak of the jazz community approval was one of the proudest moments of
in Sydney, Australia. He’d been leading his own my life.”
groups there since he was 17. So he figured he’d
Nowadays Griffin is winning kudos
spend six weeks in the jazz capital of the world, lis- throughout Australia and beyond with his
tening to and hopefully sitting in with the elite of debut album, Unexpected Greeting. Fronting
the hard-bop school he loves.
his quintet on a set of originals and standards,
What he didn’t know, when he bought his he flaunts an assertive tone, with an advanced
ticket, was that the Thelonious Monk International harmonic sensibility and technical fluency that
Jazz Competition would be happening there confirm his reverence for Bird and Cannonball
during his stay—and that saxophone was the Adderley.
focus of that year’s event.
With the same initiative that earned him a
Upon learning about
the competition, Griffin
called the contest officials and persuaded them
to accept an online application, an exception to
the usual snail-mail/
CD requirements. He
cobbled together some
iPhone recordings from
a recent gig, which luckily included a performance
of “’Round Midnight,”
added an unaccompanied blues that he cut in
his bedroom and sent
it off. He made the cut.
Griffin subsequently progressed all the way to the
semifinals.
“I think of myself now
as ‘before New York’ and
‘after New York’ because
I Iearned so much,” he
said. “Quite frankly, the
first week was the hardest because I got my butt
kicked. Seeing the quality of musicians at jam sessions made me remember that I always had to
bring my ‘A’ game. So by
the second week, I started to stand out at jam
sessions. And then at the
competition after that,
I got to hang out with
Roy Hargrove, Branford
Marsalis, Wayne Shorter,
Herbie Hancock, Marcus
Michael Griffin performs at the 2013 Thelonious
Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition.
Miller and Kurt Elling.
last-minute invitation to the Monk Competition,
Griffin persuaded the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation to release his project. “Around
2010, when I was 19 or 20 years old, I asked
them if I could be interviewed on one of their
programs,” he recalled. “At the time, I really had
nothing to talk about; all I could say was that I
play saxophone. But they told me to send some
stuff that I’d done to Malcolm Stanley, who has
a radio program called Jazz Track. He was very
impressed and he said, ‘I want you to record for
ABC,’ which I did in 2011.”
As with a growing number of young musicians, Griffin’s album was released in digital
format only. But, he insists, this wasn’t because
of any mandate on his part. “The ABC decided
not to put it out on CD. I thought about doing it,
but I would have had to pay for printing it. And
I almost did. I actually like CDs. But I wondered
how many people buy them these days. Most of
the time, people seem to listen to music on their
iPod or their computer. Quite a lot of people do
ask me if they can buy it on CD from me, but
it’s one of those things where I might print 500
or 1,000 CDs [that would be] sitting around, as
most people buy it online.”
Griffin took a DIY approach to marketing
the project. “Getting reviews, setting up interviews—that was all done by me,” he said. “I’m
very grateful that the ABC released it and that
they made it available on Amazon, iTunes,
XBox Music, Google Play and all that stuff. But
I’m the one who had to fight to get it out there.”
Griffin maintains hands-on contact with
every aspect of his career. Part of his approach
involved setting up a Facebook page, where he
posts articles and reviews. He also stocks performance footage on YouTube, including videos
from the Monk Competition.
“The beauty of the Internet is that the whole
world can see what you’re doing,” he said. “But
you still have to get things reviewed and get
yourself known in the right places. If you’re on
YouTube, it takes [effort to get a] review in a
newspaper or a major magazine. It’s a nonstop
hustle. You have to keep going, no matter how
big you get. You have to keep putting yourself
out there and trying to create opportunities.”
Griffin is based in Sydney, a city he has
always loved but whose borders have begun
feeling a little cramped. “There are some
nice jazz places here,” he said. “Venue 505 is
a major one. It actually started out as sort of
a secret, underground club. I did my album
launch there earlier this year. Another is
Foundry616, which has some great stuff going
on; international artists often play there. But
those are the only two major places. The
downside of Sydney is that a lot of stuff closes
by 11:30. That’s the beauty of New York City:
You can go to Smalls until 4 in the morning.”
Griffin has his sights set on returning to
the Big Apple, this time for a much longer or
even permanent stay. “I’m trying to get my
artist visa and move there in January,” he
said. “I’m a bopper. New York is a bop town.
So that’s where I have to be, because I do live
and breathe jazz.”
DB
INDIE LIFE
International Anthem Recording Co.
Catering to Collectors
By Aaron Cohen / Photo by Nathan Michael
T
he Chicago label International Anthem Recording Company had a
modest beginning. About three years ago, recording engineer David
Allen lugged his tapes, analog recorder and a couple of microphones
to the Chicago basement bar Curio during cornetist Rob Mazurek’s residency. Allen said his friend Scott McNiece—who programmed the concert
and asked him to document it—was “into doing non-traditional things in a
non-controlled environment and was not anal about being in a pristine studio.” The results became the start of an equally unconventional company.
Mazurek’s live recording, Alternate Moon Cycles, was the first LP on
International Anthem, which McNiece runs along with Allen and Joe
Darling. The label’s focus is on musicians who take jazz-based ideas into
open-ended directions, such as saxophonist Nick Mazzarella and drummer
Makaya McCraven. The roster also includes eccentric folk singer Rob Jacobs.
Although most International Anthem titles are also available in digital
formats, the label has quickly built a reputation for carefully pressed vinyl
albums with superb packaging. Alternate Moon Cycles is also available on
cassette, housed in a specially carved wooden box.
“We’re record collectors,” McNiece said. “It’s important that the experience of the music be as engaging as possible. If it’s only digital, people are not
going to get the proper experience of that music.”
McNiece and Darling previously had started the company Uncanned
Music, which develops customized playlists for bars and restaurants.
McNiece said Uncanned still pays the bills for International Anthem. (A
Kickstarter campaign also helped.)
McCraven’s two-LP set, In The Moment, was made from live concert
recordings, but he didn't want the album to be a merely straightforward presentation of the shows. Instead, he drew on his experience in different kinds
of music, including hip-hop, to cut and paste the program together.
“I wanted it to be obvious that [the album] was live, but to tell the story of
how the improvisation happened—the spontaneity we were involved in —but
still keep it concise and listenable for a broad range of listeners,” McCraven
explained. “It was pressed on heavy vinyl, and each side of the record is as
short as possible to dig the grooves deeper to get better sound quality.” DB
Drummer Makaya McCraven’s album In The Moment is available
from International Anthem on vinyl and in digital formats.
Masterpiece +++++
Excellent ++++
Good +++
Fair ++
Poor +
Inside
60 / Jazz
64 / Blues
68 / Beyond
73 / Historical
75 / Books
Fred Hersch
Solo
PALMETTO 2180
Fred Hersch
MARTIN ZEMAN
++++
Fred Hersch delivers a beautiful performance here. No, there is
no “but” lying in wait just ahead. The beauty radiates with
considerable persuasion and intricacy along with the sense of
acoustic space around it. The fact that there are other masters
of what might be called the philharmonic keyboard who can
summon a similar procession of elegance (such as Keith Jarrett)
doesn’t diminish this music’s appeal. Recorded in a small
church in upstate New York, the album was not intended for
release. But Hersch says that he felt it caught the best of him, so
here we are. “A found object,” he calls it.
Solo has moments of rhythmic thrust and playfulness, but
it doesn’t really swing much in the traditional sense. Hersch has
other intentions. He bestows the piano’s most fulsome resources—dynamics, pacing, motion, space—on a program of five
standards and two originals. “Caravan” is the most adroit of
the standards. He plays it as if the keyboard is too hot to touch,
picking at it with light, cat-like jabs.
This soft terseness creates a jousting banter between his
right hand and left. It has a fragile transparency, in contrast to
the tumult most pour onto this tune. The nice thing about such
a familiar piece is that the listener can share in the unexpectedness of it. Surprise is nothing more than violated expectation.
There can be no surprise inside a piece of music that isn’t preceded by expectation. Players who believe otherwise are only
surprising themselves.
“In Walked Bud” is similar in its curt articulation. It is certainly the most brisk and jazz-worthy interpretation of the lot.
I like to believe that Hersch is thinking hard about every twist
he gives this twisty Monk classic. If so, it’s full of good choices.
Hersch’s own “Whirl” starts in an urgent undertow of turbulence, thins out, then winds through a pattern of surges, highlighted by a few tactical retreats and a forte finale.
Sometimes beauty can become a bit humdrum, something
that exists for the sake of its own observance. “Pastorale” seems
to drift into that kind of atmospheric passivity. But Hersch is
a romantic, and romantics do that. He phrases in scooping
caresses, the way a violinist might squeeze expressive authority
by sliding softly into a note.
“The Song Is You” is far less at risk of disappearing into
itself because it comes with a strong and independent identity,
which Hersch never loses sight of. His variations are emotionally connected and wonderfully fitted to the material. Though
not technically a jazz standard, “Both Sides Now” is one of the
relatively few first-class tunes written in recent decades. The
Joni Mitchell song has been largely ignored on the jazz side, but
Hersch finds in it a rich playground for his lustrous voicings
and orchestral coloring. It’s a superb rendering of a wonderfully crafted melody.
—John McDonough
Solo: Olha Maria/O Grande Amor; Caravan; Pastorale; Whirl; The Song Is You; In
Walked Bud; Both Sides Now. (60:39)
Personnel: Fred Hersch, piano.
Ordering info: palmetto-records.com
Ku-umba Frank Lacy &
Mingus Big Band
Mingus Sings
SUNNYSIDE 1407
++++½
Exploring novel ways to plumb the Charles Mingus
legacy has led the Mingus Big Band to this extraordinary project: Mingus the songwriter. Mingus’ lush
orchestrations have drawn the talents of a number of great lyricists. On Mingus Sings, these songs
are assembled from their disparate and sometimes
obscure haunts, and placed in the capable hands of
Ku-umba Frank Lacy.
Lacy is a deeply musical person whose main axe
has been trombone, and he has been a voluble contributor on that instrument in the Mingus Big Band.
Here, Lacy shows himself to be equally confident as
a crooner. His perfectly controlled vibrato on “Sweet
Sucker Dance” allows Joni Mitchell’s lyrics to pack
their powerful poetic punch, blowing life into them
but never obscuring their meaning. Indeed, Lacy
approaches the songs as he would on his instrument—with tasteful, unpretentious phrasing. Above
all, he stays true to the music’s original intentions.
On Mingus’ elegiac “Duke Ellington’s Sound Of
Love” or the Langston Hughes poem “Consider Me,”
he respects the songs for what they are.
Of course nothing like this would work without
the band. The Mingus Big Band is humming along
here, and trombonists Conrad Herwig, Coleman
Hughes and Earl McIntyre more than make up for
Lacy’s absence. Hughes contributes a melancholic
trombone solo on “Weird Nightmare,” a song that
shows that Mingus didn’t need anyone else to write
lyrics for him. Sy Johnson’s arrangement on the hipster tale “Dry Cleaner From Des Moines,” with lyrics again by Mitchell, is tight as a hairpin turn. A program that encourages repeat listens, Mingus Sings
demonstrates that an ingenious approach to a wellknown archive can yield surprising results.
—John Corbett
Mingus Sings: Consider Me; Dizzy Profile; Weird Nightmare;
Portrait; Goodbye Porkpie Hat; Sweet Sucker Dance; Invisible Lady;
Duke Ellington’s Sound Of Love; Dry Cleaner From Des Moines;
Noonlight; Chair In The Sky; Eclipse; Jelly Roll. (73:05)
Personnel: Frank Lacy, vocals; Jack Walrath, Alex Norris, Lew
Soloff, trumpet; Alex Foster, alto saxophone, flute, clarinet; Craig
Handy, Wayne Escoffery, Abraham Burton, Brandon Wright, tenor
saxophone; Ronnie Cuber, baritone saxophone; Conrad Herwig,
Coleman Hughes, Earl McIntyre, trombone; David Kikoski, piano
(1–7); Helen Sung, piano (8–13); Boris Kozlov, bass (1–7); Mike
Richmond, bass (8–13); Donald Edwards, drums.
Ordering info: sunnysidezone.com
The Bad Plus and
Joshua Redman
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman
NONESUCH 548920
++++
You don’t think of The Bad Plus as a band that
needs help. Since the trio ignited itself a decadeand-a-half ago, it’s been rich with intrepid ideas
and the skills to fulfill them. But fellow travelers have been intermittently welcomed. Guitarist
Bill Frisell was invited to celebrate Paul Motian’s
music, and vocalist Wendy Lewis joined to put
an art-song spin on classic rock nuggets, so
the bridge-building that Ethan Iverson, Reid
Anderson and Dave King effect with Joshua
Redman on this latest album has precedent. What
makes it unusual is its depth; mining a connection
that seems intuitive to both sides, it’s as if the saxophonist were a blood brother.
Integration is everything here. The Bad Plus is
famous for throwing curveballs into their pieces. Contoured rhythmic wobble, feints toward
melodic disintegration, grandiosity that may or
may not arrive with a grin—each has been an
occasional part of their design schema. Redman’s
horn, though naturally expressionistic, navigates
such waters masterfully. Together, on bubbly ballads like “Beauty Has It Hard” and bristling ruminations like “The Mending,” the group alignment
is spot-on. When I caught them on stage at the
start of a summer tour, the coordination was even
more expert, with all four members honing their
moves to support the music’s architecture while
still finding room to be playful—two discrete lingos letting loose by keeping things wound tight.
Still, the foursome knows when to let off
steam. From the giddy romp of “County Seat” to
the dizzy swirl of “Faith Through Error,” they’ve
not abandoned hubbub. The ardor that forms so
much of jazz’s temperament is coursing through
these tracks, even if it’s meted out, and by the time
the epic “Silence Is The Question” drifts away,
you’ll know charisma is a big part of The Bad Plus
Joshua Redman’s equation.
—Jim Macnie
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman: As This Moment Slips Away;
Beauty Has It Hard; County Seat; The Mending; Faith Through
Error; Lack The Faith But Not The Wine; Friend Or Foe; Silence Is The
Question. (59:18)
Personnel: Reid Anderson, bass; Dave King, drums; Ethan
Iverson, piano; Joshua Redman, tenor saxophone.
Ordering info: nonesuch.com
Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet
Family First
BEAT MUSIC PRODUCTIONS 003
++++
Mark Guiliana is a young drummer with a creative command of electronics. Here he debuts
an acoustic quartet worthy of admiration. Quiet,
minor and processional, Family First is an understated, friendly album ripe with gorgeous melodies. It should draw both casual and avid jazz listeners. Guiliana doesn’t overwhelm the music
with bombast; the undercurrent of his vamps sets
the mood. The band handles the sudden changeups in tempo and volume that characterize his
open-form tunes with easy grace. Even when the
feeling is solemn, celebratory joy seeps through.
“ABED” is an especially attractive melody, stated
by tenor saxophonist Jason Rigby in a plain, lightly
hollow middle register that recalls West Coast jazz,
with a Monkish solo by pianist Shai Maestro, who
also played with Guiliana in bassist Avishai Cohen’s
trio. A dirge-like cover of Bob Marley’s “Johnny Was”
is reminiscent of Swedish trio’s E.S.T.’s slow-motion tempos. “The Importance Of Brothers,” with a
dramatic marching thump, collapses into a fluttering interlude, resumes its deliberate trudge, opens up
with a free solo by Maestro and flutters back out.
“Welcome Home” has the prayerful, throaty cry
of Pharoah Sanders, and the title tune tolls under a
chuffing sax solo, with atmospheric cymbal work by
Guiliana. Bassist Chris Morrissey takes a lovely turn
on “The Importance Of Brothers.”
As a soloist, Guiliana is alternately light on his
feet (“ABED”) and fiery (“Long Branch”), with
Rigby running lines around him on the latter. On
“One Month,” which shifts to a gospel feel in the
middle, the drummer sets up a nervous vamp, alternating between low and high pitches of tom and
snare. “From You” proceeds over a broken, odd-metered push-pull figure. Sometimes the band is content to simply state the tune, as on the elegiac “2014,”
demonstrating their ensemble coherence.
Guiliana’s plugged-in music has been a
treat, especially last year’s My Life Starts Now.
Hopefully, we will be hearing more from this
acoustic quartet.
—Paul de Barros
Family First: One Month; ABED; 2014; Long Branch; Johnny Was;
From You; The Importance Of Brothers; Welcome Home; Family
First. (61:07)
Personnel: Mark Guiliana, drums; Chris Morrissey, bass; Shai
Maestro, piano; Jason Rigby, tenor saxophone.
Ordering info: markguiliana.bandcamp.com
The
Critics
Fred Hersch
Solo
Ku-umba Frank Lacy & Mingus Big Band
Mingus Sings
The Bad Plus and Joshua Redman
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman
Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet
Family First
John McDonough
John Corbett
Jim Macnie
Paul de Barros
★★★★
★★★★½
★★★★
★★½
★★★
★★★★½
★★½
★★½
★★★★
★★★★
★★★★
★★★½
★★★
★★★½
★★★½
★★★★
Critics’ Comments
Fred Hersch, Solo
Hersch lays out a program so rich you’ll want to savor it in increments, enjoying its bittersweetness and poignancy, even the version of “Both Sides Now,” which is faithful, romantic and still somehow deeply intelligent.
—John Corbett
It’s a recital with the markings of a casual salon affair—the prettiest parlor concert ever. And the details carry
the day. Just listen to him mess with the rhythmic values on “In Walked Bud.”
—Jim Macnie
Hersch is one of our best pianists, no argument, thanks to his immaculate touch, crystalline sound and profound sense of story as a soloist. But except for a lovely Jobim pairing and the swinging “In Walked Bud,” this
album has too much churn and not enough burn. —Paul de Barros
Ku-umba Frank Lacy & Mingus Big Band, Mingus Sings
Lacy’s bristly vocals make this a songbook album. But as such, the material mostly lives in the insular and
self-nourishing Mingus bubble, not beyond. The lyrics are earnest but tend to lie nervously on music not
intended to be sung. “Dry Cleaner” is the most fun and least pretentious. Sy Johnson’s charts showcase the
Mingus band and soloists with an agreeable generosity.
—John McDonough
Hats off for giving this elaborate program a whirl while trying to personalize Mingus’ “passions of a man,” but
Lacy’s voice isn’t something I’ll need to investigate much further. There’s a certain charm at hand, but it lacks
the skill to sustain real interest.
—Jim Macnie
Assembling Charles Mingus charts for which he and others (Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello) wrote lyrics is an
absolutely stellar idea. But having trombonist Ku-umba Frank Lacy sing them in his strained, stabbing, raspy
voice is not. A lyric sheet—no doubt prohibitively expensive—would have helped. Still, it’s nice to have these all
in one place. Sy Johnson’s arrangements are marvelous. —Paul de Barros
The Bad Plus and Joshua Redman, The Bad Plus Joshua Redman
More than a drop-in, Redman coalesces here with The Bad Plus, a group wherein each member pulls his own
distinct weight and experience. A smart and well-tempered seminar. Some pieces are so tight they sound
almost through-composed. But even on a windswept wildflower like “County Seat,” an ensemble precision
and restraint reign. A remarkable partnership of sovereign sensibilities. —John McDonough
Everyone holds back so brilliantly here that the explosive crescendi (“Faith Through Error”) and swinging
passages (“County Seat”) have extra cathartic weight. But the restrained parts have another expressive power,
and the trio’s simply never sounded better than in this simpatico joining of forces with Redman. Iverson
continues to be one of today’s most comprehensive talents. —John Corbett
Who knew this would be such a great fit? Redman sounds like he’s always been a member of this eclectic
jazz-rock trio, especially as he glides over an unexpected scale into a pool of piano on King’s secret-sounding
“Beauty Has It Hard” and blowing free on Iverson’s “County Seat.” —Paul de Barros
Mark Guiliana, Family First
Guiliana offers a set of restful originals, for a drummer at least. Rather than drive the material, he nudges it.
On the few that call for percussive dazzle, he shows us what he can do by laying down a rumbling ground fire
broken by minefields of rim shots. But the Basie-ish “ABED” is real timekeeping.
—John McDonough
Beautiful little rhythm section tristes, proclamatory pop melodies, a sly Marley cover—lots to love about Family
First. Especially dig the leader’s crisp drumming and the ensemble’s fresh sound. —John Corbett
At first a bit too formal, but it draws you in further with each repeated spin. And ultimately the regimentation
is a boon, helping to sustain focus. Plus: You do Marley’s “Johnny Was,” and I’m down. —Jim Macnie
Gary Peacock Trio
Now This
ECM 2428
++++
At 80, bassist Gary Peacock is probably best
known for his role in Keith Jarrett’s long-running “standards trio.” But his own trio—with pianist Marc Copland and drummer Joey Baron—
is an exceptional model of instrumental balance,
melodic interpretation and refined elegance.
On Peacock’s seventh ECM recording as a
leader, the band appears particularly single-minded, playing with a high level of unity and sense
of purpose. Baron, in particular, sounds telepathic, accompanying his bandmates with a deft
touch on cymbals for much of the time. He also
demonstrates a singular knack for knowing when
to push up the energy—adding hand drums to
the feathery meditation “Gaia” and introducing a
rare snare drum to “Noh Blues” for some critical
ballast. The decision to concentrate primarily on
cymbal work places more emphasis on Peacock’s
bass, which sings with woody depth throughout.
The trio revisits two Peacock favorites—the
mysterious-sounding “Moor,” first recorded on
Eastward in 1970, and the regal “Requiem,” which
made its appearance the following year. The
bassist also looks to the past with Scott LaFaro’s
“Gloria’s Step,” which is given a lightly swinging treatment, setting it apart from the dominant
impressionistic mood.
The gentle ballad “Christa” also stands out for
its adherence to traditional song form. With its
subtle movement—Baron a standout again—
harmonic rigor and gorgeous melody, it actually sounds like something Jarrett might play, and
Copland creates an effective balance between a
crystalline top end and darker chords.
In general, it is Copland who sets the mood
throughout, using long-sustained treble notes
to establish the emotional tone, while Peacock
and Baron lock in with him to create dream-like
movement on “Shadows,” the feeling of falling
snow on Copland’s composition “And Now” and
multi-directional exploration on Baron’s “Esprit
De Muse.”
—James Hale
Now This: Gaia; Shadows; This; And Now; Esprit De Muse; Moor;
Noh Blues; Christa; Vignette; Gloria’s Step; Requiem. (57:53)
Personnel: Marc Copland, piano; Gary Peacock, bass; Joey Baron,
drums.
Ordering info: ecmrecords.com
Pete Rodriguez
El Conde Negro
DESTINY
++++½
Critics typically mouth descriptors like “grooving,” “hard-charging” and “rhythmic” when referring to Latin or Afro-Cuban music. And trumpeter/vocalist/composer Pete Rodriguez certainly
brings the burn to El Conde Negro, the follow-up
to his dynamic debut, Caminando Con Papi.
Rodriguez is part of modern-day and historic
Latin jazz royalty, after all, having barked cues
while playing trumpet and percussion on the
bandstand of his legendary salsero father, crooner Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez. But by the age of
15, Pete was also playing classical music with a
symphony orchestra in Puerto Rico. These varied experiences help explain music that is not only
instrumentally ferocious, but texturally rich and
at times, profoundly intimate.
Accompanied by a band of ringers—pianist
Luis Perdomo, bassist Ricky Rodriguez, drummer Rudy Royston and percussionist Robert
Quintero—Rodriguez creates compositions rich
in musical depth, tone and beauty, as well as
rhythm and melody. An equally exceptional singer, Rodriguez conveys passion and longing in
every phrase, giving his music an appeal beyond
genres. Rodriguez’s trumpet playing is colorful, both hot blooded and pastoral, winsome and
charged.
“Stolen Changes,” for example, darts like battling fireflies, from Afro-Cuban to straightahead,
with through-composed sections where Royston
and Quintero tumble together, hand in glove. The
song hits a breakdown, percussion and trumpet
leading the charge, supported by Perdomo’s cerebral comping. Throughout, riches of texture and
atmosphere mark every song on this exceptionally clear and cliché-free album.
—Ken Micallef
Henry Threadgill Zooid
In For A Penny, In For A Pound
PI 58
++++½
Henry Threadgill and his remarkable band Zooid
continue to reap dividends from their exploration
of how fixed intervals can be utilized as a polyphonic improvisational form—a seemingly inexhaustible concept allowing for fresh elucidation of
his singular melodies, as terse and fragmented as
they are in this project. Of course, melodic writing
isn’t the point of Zooid. Instead, the assignment
of specific three-note intervals to each musician
offers a loose road map for an exhilarating collage
of improvised lines free of constraints imposed by
chords or modes. In For A Penny, In For A Pound
is an extended suite, or “epic” as Threadgill calls it,
with four of the six movements devoted to a singular instrument (with the exception of the composition for Jose Davila, who doubles on trombone
and tuba). But that focus is relative, as the rest of
the group is heavily involved in each song.
As usual, Threadgill’s music arrives sui generis, but there are antecedents percolating through
his writing and his characteristically unique timbres—the agile, rubbery puffing of Davila’s tuba
combined with the jaggedly martial patterns
of Elliot Kavee’s drumming recalls the leader’s
early fascination with marching bands. The real
achievement of this group revolves around an
ever-strengthening rapport and quicksilver sense
of interaction. For this stuff to work as potently as it does, the musicians must listen on a very
high level, absorbing everything going on around
them. Threadgill often sits out for extended spells,
but his rich solos—a tapestry of terse but poignant
phrases guided by a holistic view of the action,
rather than a linear one—tend to stitch everything
together. Still, there are so many fast-moving
details and epiphanies at work here that it takes
some rigor to hear how it all fits together, even if
isolated phrases and sallies are rich in delight.
—Peter Margasak
El Conde Negro: Soy La Ley; Stolen Changes; Catalina La O;
Gravity; Convergencia; Ten Fe; Sombras Que Paso; Perdomo’s
Blues; Guaguanco De Amor; El Conde Negro. (71:23)
In For A Penny, In For A Pound: (Disc One): In For A Penny,
In For A Pound (opening); Ceroepic (For Drums And Percussion);
Dosepic (For Cello). (Disc Two): Off The Prompt Box (Exordium);
Tresepic (For Trombone And Tuba); Unoepic (For Guitar). (79:09)
Personnel: Pete Rodriguez, trumpet, vocals; Luis Perdomo, piano,
Fender Rhodes; Ricky Rodriguez, bass; Rudy Royston, drums;
Robert Quintero, percussion.
Personnel: Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone, flute, bass flute;
Jose Davila, trombone, tuba; Liberty Ellman, guitar; Christopher
Hoffman, cello; Elliot Kavee, drums, percussion.
Ordering info: destinyrecordsmusic.com
Ordering info: pirecordings.com
mild interest. Such is the case with “Very Bari,”
which wanders between dryness and sparse
moments of lyricism.
“Gears” probes with the kind of cause-andeffect interaction that suspends any need for
a jazz framework. And yet, along with the set
closer “Quest,” it is the album’s most conventional piece, akin to something approaching an
actual composition. Zeitlin’s fanciful keyboards
combine with Marsh’s propulsive swing to create a song of sorts, and the tune’s slow-grinding
groove seems inevitable.
This is where the chemistry between old
friends becomes palpable. Since the vast major-
Denny Zeitlin and
George Marsh
Riding The Moment: Duo
Electro-Acoustic Improvisations
SUNNYSIDE 1408
+++
Denny Zeitlin is one of those now-historic pianists who has played the gamut of jazz. Even
so, he’s never been entirely comfortable with
convention. The same can be said for drummer/percussionist George Marsh, whose tempered, unequivocal playing accompanies
Zeitlin on Riding The Moment. In each other’s company, they seem right at home.
Coming in the wake of Zeitlin’s 2013 solo
electro-acoustic release, Both/And, this
album reunites two musicians who first
worked together during the late ’60s on into
the ’70s. But for Zeitlin, the fascination with
electronics precedes their earliest collaborations. Listening to Riding The Moment, one
might gather a more “synthesized” approach
to his ever-evolving melding of electronics
with the acoustic piano.
Given the trajectory of keyboard electronics since those early days, it’s remarkable how Zeitlin seems to rely on more basic
sounds, suggest tones deriving more from
a computer than a keyboard. Indeed, his
approach—including some vivid sounds and
textures in the form of bass notes—recalls
early electronic music from Gil Mellé.
Riding The Moment is aptly titled, given
that it’s all about spontaneous composition (as
if that were an alternative to just plain improvising). The duo vibe contributes to this spirit
of improvisation, but mainly because the two
musicians are veterans of the jazz scene who
have never been content to rehash or sound
“novel.”
The best moments come when the two get
crazy, as they do on “Wheels & Tracks,” in
which the speed of the moment pushes the
two past more meditative, seemingly tentative gestures. Zeitlin toggles between the
electronic and acoustic as if in a swirl of emotion, and Marsh, equally up to the task on
drumset, uses everything in his kit to help get
the pianist’s emotional message across. Other
moments seems stunted, or like internal experiments. They feel incomplete, holding only
ity of the music didn’t involve overdubs, Riding
The Moment comes across as a cohesive effort.
At times it’s fun, and generally interesting.
But all said, this is not particularly memorable
music.
—John Ephland
Riding The Moment: Back On The Horse; Fermenting;
Marching To A Different Drummer; Setting Sail; Vortex; Broken
Nest; The Visit; Wheels & Tracks; Very Bari; Gears; Down The
Rabbit Hole; Quest. (75:54)
Personnel: Denny Zeitlin, acoustic piano, hardware and virtual
synthesizers, keyboards; George Marsh, drums, percussion.
Branford Marsalis Quartet
A Love Supreme: Live
In Amsterdam
MARSALIS MUSIC/OKEH 88875069032
++++
In 2002, when saxophonist Branford Marsalis
released his interpretation of John Coltrane’s iconic A Love Supreme on his own Footsteps Of Our
Fathers, many in the jazz community were outraged.
Contrary to their misgivings, the skies did not fall,
and Coltrane’s original was not diminished.
Call this reissue of 2003’s A Love Supreme: Live
In Amsterdam the anti-Blue (the divisive note-fornote copy of Kind Of Blue by Mostly Other People
Do The Killing). This time around, Marsalis’ take
on the masterpiece maintains the structural frame-
work of the original, but only as a jumping-off
point. While there is some Trane in Marsalis’ tone
and attack, and some McCoy Tyner in pianist Joey
Calderazzo’s left hand, their approaches to how they
convey this music are all their own. The result is
proof that epochal music needs to be played, not just
listened to in its original form.
This performance of the suite from Amsterdam’s
Bimhuis sounds especially fluid—with Marsalis,
Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Jeff
“Tain” Watts going for the spirit of Coltrane’s expression of devotion rather than trying to replicate the
original. One aspect is that Watts drives the quartet more actively and aggressively than Elvin Jones,
whose approach was governed by interaction and
response. On “Part II—Resolution,” for example,
Watts sounds like he’s soloing through the latter half
of Calderazzo’s supercharged improvisation, and he
punctuates Marsalis’ choruses with assertive tomtom and cymbal combinations.
In addition to paying homage to the Coltrane
suite on its 50th anniversary, this reissue serves
as a potent reminder of how powerful and cohesive the quartet was with Watts on drums, prior to
his departure from the group in 2009. Rather than
tomb raiding, Marsalis has succeeded in breathing new life into a decades-old classic—the equivalent of backing a low-mileage, vintage Ferrari
out of the garage and doing a few laps around the
speedway.
—James Hale
A Love Supreme: Live In Amsterdam: Part I—Acknowledgement;
Part II—Resolution; Part III—Pursuance; Part IV—Psalm. (48:26)
Personnel: Branford Marsalis, tenor saxophone; Joey Calderazzo,
piano; Eric Revis, bass; Jeff “Tain” Watts, drums.
Ordering info: okeh-records.com
Zach Brock
Serendipity
CRISS CROSS JAZZ 1380
++++½
Zach Brock, one of a handful of great jazz violinists currently active, grew up influenced by both
Stéphane Grappelli and classic Blue Note hardbop recordings. During his formative years he was
strongly affected by Jean Luc Ponty and Zbigniew
Seifert, a highly individual violinist who grew up
isolated from much of the jazz world in his native
Poland. Brock has blended together these inspirations to form his own passionate post-bop style.
Brock begins Serendipity by paying homage to
Seifert on “City Of Spring,” a performance that
hints at both 1970s fusion and McCoy Tynerinspired modal music. “Serendipity” uses a threenote pattern to disguise the fact that it is built
upon the chord changes of “It Could Happen To
You.” The “deception” continues throughout the
tradeoff of pianist Aaron Goldberg and drummer
Obed Calvaire before the standard gradually surfaces during the cooking piano solo. Bassist Matt
Penman also has a solid and concise moment in
the spotlight.
The modern folk song “Swansea” inspires a
lyrical and passionate performance from Brock.
The violinist joyously revives Ponty’s “Sunday
Walk” (a boogaloo blues). He and his bandmates
sound like they are clearly having fun during their
individual statements. “Some Other Time” is
taken slow and given a conventional but satisfying treatment with warm and melodic improvisa58 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2015
tions by Goldberg and Brock. On Charlie Parker’s
“Segment,” Goldberg surprisingly builds his solo
off of phrases associated with Lennie Tristano,
while Brock makes a virtuosic uptempo bop solo
sound easy. The romantic yet mildly unsettling
“Sally’s Song” precedes Brock’s “Summer Dance,”
an episodic work that returns us to the fusion of
the first piece.
There are no slow moments to Serendipity, a
wide-ranging set that serves as an excellent vehicle for Brock and his quartet.
—Scott Yanow
Serendipity: City Of Spring; Serendipity; Swansea; Sunday Walk;
Some Other Time; Segment; Sally’s Song; Summer Dance. (54:12)
Personnel: Zach Brock, violin, baritone violin; Aaron Goldberg,
piano; Matt Penman, bass; Obed Calvaire, drums.
Ordering info: crisscrossjazz.com
Brian Landrus Trio
The Deep Below
BLUELAND 2015
++++
It’s no criticism to say that low-woodwind specialist Brian Landrus is in love with his own
sound. After all, a good sound is fundamental for any musician: You’re not going anyplace
without it. In Landrus’ case, sound isn’t merely another tool—it appears to be an important
source of ideas. Choosing from baritone sax,
bass clarinet, bass flute or bass saxophone for a
particular number is as important a decision for
him as tempo or key.
Take opener “Fly,” from this trio disc with
bassist Lonnie Plaxico and drummer Billy Hart.
As he moves from theme to solo on his bari,
Landrus transitions with a downshift in register and gorgeous little pearl of a figure. It’s as
though he creates the roadmap for each tune
based on the horn he uses to play it. Likewise,
the spectral breadth of bass flute is the perfect
vehicle for the folkloric allusions of “Ancient.”
There are, of course, instances when
Landrus’ great chops—and the dramatic impact
of a particular horn—are their own justification, as in the opening blast on the bass saxophone feature “The Beginning.” But it’s impressive how well each of these pieces is arranged as
an integrated whole, and not merely a solo showcase. On the Sinatra torch song “I’m A Fool To
Want You,” Landrus gives the opening melody to
Plaxico, setting up a later trade of solos in which
baritone sax and acoustic bass become two
halves of the same personality. Though leaning mostly toward ballad tempos, this album
swings hard all the way through—often thanks
to Plaxico and Hart, but also to the leader’s
sublime time feel (check his a cappella “Giant
Steps”). It doesn’t hurt that Landrus can produce an unforced, pure tone in every register,
even at his most forcefully expressive.
—Jon Garelick
The Deep Below: Fly; Sophisticated Lady; The Beginning; Fields
Of Zava; Giant Steps; Will She Ever Know; It Comes Together At The
End; Just A Fading Memory; I’m A Fool To Want You; Orebro Treaty;
Ancient; Open Water; The Age; Once Again. (52:01)
Personnel: Brian Landrus, baritone saxophone (1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 13),
bass clarinet (4, 8, 10, 12, 14), bass flute (6, 11), bass saxophone (3);
Lonnie Plaxico, bass; Billy Hart, drums.
Ordering info: bluelandrecords.com
chords that are frequently inseparable from
the vibraphone. Justin Brown subtly transports the f luid motion and punctuates dramatic peaks with powerful drum surges.
Linda Oh’s bass playing is elegantly
grounding yet never insistent, while Loren
Stillman’s alto saxophone often defers to
the ensemble texture, tenderly singing in
his upper register. And there’s consistently
inventive soloing all around.
There are moments of sudden breathtaking texture: a sparkling ostinato orbiting Oh’s
pensive bass solo or an ensemble tapestry of
bell-like notes sounding like a chorus of rimrubbed wine glasses.
Sometimes tender, sometimes rugged, it’s
a landscape both beautiful and persistently
mysterious. We’re compelled to listen, then listen
even closer.
—Jeff Potter
The Subliminal And The Sublime: Tectonic Plates; Voices Of
The Ancient; Plea; The Pinnacles; All Flows Forth. (60:54)
Personnel: Chris Dingman, vibraphone; Loren Stillman, alto
saxophone; Fabian Almazan, piano; Ryan Ferreira, guitar; Linda Oh,
bass; Justin Brown, drums.
Ordering info: inner-arts.org
Chris Dingman
The Subliminal And The Sublime
INNER ARTS INITIATIVE 001
++++
Considering the essence of his instrument,
it’s only fitting that vibraphonist Chris
Dingman would compose an extended piece
exploring the beauty of long tones, ringing sonorities and overlapping harmonic
waves. On his sophomore outing as a leader,
Dingman does so brilliantly.
The mallet man’s through-composed,
five-part suite is informed by jazz, ambient
sound, impressionism, world music and dabs
of minimalism. Inspired by his meditative
wanderings in the American West, Dingman
specifies the suite’s concept as a statement
on the essence of nature.
The Subliminal And The Sublime is
based on the concept that, under the surface of our apparent reality, there are subliminal layers of patterns, detail and
depth,” he writes in the liner notes. “When
we look at these layers more closely, we have
the opportunity to discover sublime truths
about our world and ourselves.”
Such lofty declarations commonly
amount to little more than liner note babble. But Dingman’s layered compositions
and intuitive performances successfully
achieve his ambition.
The suite opens with Dingman bowing
his vibraphone, coaxing swelling notes,
harmonics and emerging harmonies from
the instrument, while manipulating a liberally depressed sustain pedal—a method
he skillfully employs to create rich colors
throughout.
Several minutes in, ensemble members
enter in a conf luence of sonic rivulets.
The swirling sound evolves over a lyrical
61-minute work that spans the grand to the
minimal in a masterly paced arc of tension
and release.
But the atmospheric nature of the suite
never succumbs to wandering; instead, the
subtle, yet complex layers skittering below the
surface consistently engage.
Pianist Fabian Almazan accompanies
with a composer’s ear, while guitarist Ryan
Ferreira plucks shimmering, almost harp-like
Jazz /
BY BILL MILKOWSKI
Vital Organs
Pat Bianchi, Higher Standard (21-H Records 001; 57:30 ++++) The Rochester
native and organist in Pat Martino’s trio for
the past four years brings a reverence for the
old school, a masterful touch with grooving
left-handed bass lines and a scorching righthand technique to this set of jazz standards,
Broadway show tunes and two originals.
Accompanied by the swinging Philly-based
guitarist Craig Ebner and veteran drummer
Byron Landham (a longtime member of Joey
DeFrancesco’s group), Bianchi tears it up on
“Without A Song,” famously covered by Sonny Rollins on The Bridge (1962), and flaunts
his Jimmy Smith-inspired burn on a relaxed
medium-tempo rendition of Horace Silver’s
“Blue Silver,” the latter featuring an outstanding solo from Ebner. The syncopated crew
steps into a more modernist, Larry Young-ish
zone on Bianchi’s “The Will Of Landham,”
which again showcases the organist’s incendiary right-hand runs. And they settle into a
mellow accord on two songs associated with
Bill Evans—Leonard Bernstein’s poignant
Pat Bianchi
“Some Other Time” and the great pianist’s
gently swinging waltz, “Very Early”—both
underscored by Landham’s inimitable brushwork. on tenor sax. Though Colligan is rarely heard in
Then it’s back to the sheer burn factor on John this kind of setting, he acquits himself nicely on
Coltrane’s “Satellite,” Oscar Pettiford’s “Bohemia urgently swinging tracks like the bristling closer,
After Dark” and Bianchi’s own jaunty “Blues Mi- “Red Flag,” and the incendiary title track, as well
nus One,” the latter fueled by Landham’s conver- as on the relaxed, medium-tempo swinger “Night
sational, loosely swinging pulse. This is feel-good Watchman,” which has Norris playing a beautiful
music delivered by three consummate pros on the flugelhorn solo and Thomas blowing in typically
searching fashion on his robust tenor solo. Other
organ group circuit.
highlights on this superb outing, which is fueled by
Ordering info: patbianchi.com
Brian Charette, Alphabet City (Posi-Tone Royston’s crisply swinging, remarkably interactive
PR8140; 55:12 +++½ ) An in-demand organist touch on the kit, are the swaggering “San Jose,” a
on the New York scene, Charette pushes the en- mellow rendition of Bobby Hutcherson’s gorgeous
velope in a few unconventional directions on his waltz “Little B’s Poem” and Colligan’s surging “Opninth release as a leader. Joined by guitarist Will timism.” A stellar effort by an all-star crew that exBernard and drummer Rudy Royston, the versa- udes a high level of intensity and a collective sense
tile crew incorporates James Brown-inspired funk of burn from track to track.
(“They Left Fred Out”), unabashed fusion (the aptly
named “Not A Purist”) and Eastern European folk
elements (“Hungarian Major”) into the eclectic
mix. “Sharpie Moustache” is a minor blues that
falls somewhere between The Meters and Booker
T & The MG’s while the rock-ish “Disco Nap” turns
Royston loose at the tag. “Avenue A” is a gentle
ode to Charette’s beloved East Village neighborhood and “Split Black” offers Bernard a chance to
stretch out on a distortion-laced solo. And while
the closer, “The Vague Reply,” is perhaps the most
conventional B-3 number here, it is clear that Charette wants to take the organ out of the jazz lounge
and test-drive it down some very different roads
with this ambitious release.
Ordering info: posi-tone.com
Alex Norris Organ Quartet, Extension
Deadline (Brooklyn Jazz Underground 052;
50:25 ++++½ ) Royston also makes an appearance on this exhilarating modernist outing
led by trumpeter Alex Norris and featuring George
Colligan on Hammond organ and Gary Thomas
Ordering info: bjurecords.com
Ray Anderson’s Organic Quartet, Being
The Point (Intuition 71313; 52:48 +++½ )
Gary Versace is the organ foil to Ray Anderson’s
trombone on this spirited and highly unorthodox
organ group offering that travels from upbeat calypso-meets-funk (“At Home in the Muddy Water”)
to mournful requiem (“Marching On—Blues For
John Lewis”) to bittersweet ballad (“Child’s Eyes”)
to the compelling second line number “Instigations,” which features Tommy Campbell stretching out on a melodic drum solo. Versace is turned
loose to wail on the uptempo swinger “Hot Crab
Pot,” which is brimming with quirky, Cage-ian interludes, and also on the skronk-fueled title track,
which carries a slightly sinister vibe. Versace also
delivers a wistful, lyrical organ solo on the hauntingly beautiful “Realization.” Anderson’s love of
the Hammond B-3 is as strong as the rest in this
roundup, but his application of that hulking beast
DB
here is also wildly different than the others.
Ordering info: rayanderson.org
Makaya McCraven
In The Moment
INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM 0003
++++
Fusion jazz, with its embrace of electricity and studio
post-production, and free improvisation, which elevated spontaneous improvisation, arose at roughly the same time. While their commercial fortunes
contrast strongly, they are united in the disparagement they’ve earned from certain corners of the jazz
community. On In The Moment, they come together
in a truce brokered by a third genre: hip-hop.
Mind you, Makaya McCraven probably isn’t too
worried about what you call the music on In The
Moment. As befits a drummer whose CV includes
stints with both Bobby Broom and Bernie Worrell,
he’s more concerned with making music that
breathes and grows. McCraven assembled the
album from live recordings made during an extended sojourn at the Bedford, a restaurant in Chicago’s
Wicker Park. Neither the membership of his band
nor the material they played was fixed. Rather, whoever joined him improvised the music, constrained
only by McCraven’s strong preference for a clearly stated groove. McCraven and a sequence of bassists never betray that imperative, but they find within it plenty of room for exploration. He races ahead
of the beat, elaborates upon it, briefly suspends it and
reduces it to essentials, creating a framework capable
of supporting complementary rhythms, spacy atmospheres and short, pungent melodies.
Though the music is improvised, it has also been
diligently distilled, and sometimes enhanced by
added loops. While eight additional players appear
alongside McCraven on the record, there are never
more than five at a time, and often only three.
Vibraphonist Justin “Justefan” Thomas and guitarist Jeff Parker are McCraven’s foils, adding both
cloudy textures and acid tones. Each gets some
licks in, but this is music is more about achieving
and sustaining a collective vibe than making solo
statements, and on that level it is quite successful.
—Bill Meyer
In The Moment: Exploration Intro; The Jaunt; Slightest Right;
First Thing First; Lonely; Gnawa; On The Spot; Butterscotch;
TomTom; Three Fifths A Man; In The Moment; Quartz; Just Stay
Right There; Untitled; Requests; Time Travel; The Encore; The Drop;
Finances. (73:42)
Personnel: Mayaka McCraven, drums, beats, loops, overdubs;
Matt Ulery, double bass, electric bass; Marquis Hill, trumpet; Junius
Paul, double bass, electric bass; Justin “Justefan” Thomas, vibraphone; Jeff Parker, guitar; Joshua Abrams, double bass; De’Sean
Jones, tenor saxophone; Tony Barba, tenor saxophone, electronics.
Ordering info: intlanthem.bandcamp.com
Samuel Torres Group
Forced Displacement
ZOHO 201507
++++
Gabriel Alegría AfroPeruvian Sextet
10
ZOHO 201509
++++
Upon arriving in the United States from his
native Colombia 25 years ago, percussionist
Samuel Torres was quickly recruited into trumpeter Arturo Sandoval’s band. Since then, he’s
become an in-demand conguero, accompanying
top names in jazz, Latin and pop. But Torres has
always remained equally dedicated to composi-
tion, so when he received a grant from Chamber
Music America in 2012, he seized the opportunity to bring those talents to the forefront. This, his
third disc, is the product of that effort.
His 10-segment suite is a dedication to the
numerous Colombians who’ve been displaced
due to the country’s long-festering conflict
between guerillas, paramilitary groups and the
national army. Accordingly, there are passages of
melancholy, often with a haunting lyricism that’s
both unsettling and beautiful. These moments
are balanced with strains of joy and declarations
of fortitude and hope, often proudly resounding
with Columbian folkloric elements.
The drum is certainly the pillar of this recording, and Torres makes this evident from the overture, choosing to introduce the suite’s central
motif on congas. His use of his percussion in a
melodic role is especially dramatic in “Finale,”
which features a five-minute solo that bookends
the suite. Balanced and brimming with emotion,
sophisticated and passionate, Torres’ heartfelt
gesture to his homeland is a new career apex.
Also on the Zoho label is trumpeter Gabriel
Alegría’s 10. The title refers to the decade anniversary of his marvelous Afro-Peruvian Sextet. For
the past decade, the group has been a prominent
catalyst in the wedding of jazz harmonies with
the Peruvian rhythms, especially festejo, a music
born from the black populations of the country's
coastal region.
The tracks alternate between American and
Peruvian standards. Making the intercontinental
concept even more literal, the band performs two
national anthems: “The Star Spangled Banner”
and “Himno Nacional Del Perú.”
The opener, “Caravan,” immediately sets the
tone. In the most direct application of festejo, the
song is rascally and raucous. Layers of traditional
percussion define the distinctive Afro-Peruvian
feel. From that point, the album’s musical sources
become increasingly integrated.
A highpoint, “Homenaje A Chincha,” is also
the most border-defying number. Here, tabla
master Badal Roy joins Alegría for a percussion
breakdown that builds to ecstatic peaks. It’s a disc
to be loved by progressives and block-party dancers alike.
—Jeff Potter
Forced Displacement: Overture; Las Canta’oras (The Female
Singers); Velada De Tambores (Drums Soiree); Narrador De Espejismos (Narrator Of Mirages); Niño Pensante (The Thinking Child); El
Silencio Desplazador (Displacing Silence); Lluvia, Luna Y Voz (Rain,
Moon And Voice); Emilsen, El Hijo De San Juan (Emilsen, The Son
Of San Juan); El Orgullo Del Tambor (Drum’s Pride); Finale. (49:55)
Personnel: Samuel Torres, congas, claps; Michael Rodriguez,
trumpet, flugelhorn; Yosvany Terry, alto and soprano saxophones;
Luis Perdomo, piano; Marshall Gilkes, trombone, claps; Ricky Rodriguez, acoustic bass; Obed Calvaire, drums, claps; Jonathan Gómez,
tambor alegre, tambora costeña, maracón, tambor llamador,
calabaza; Edmar Castañeda, claps.
Ordering info: zohomusic.com
10: Caravan; Take Five/El Condor Pasa; Taita Guaranguito; My
Favorite Things; Birdland; Himno Nacional Del Perú; Lonely
Woman; Contigo Perú; Homenaje A Chincha; The Star Spangled
Banner. (58:35)
Personnel: Gabriel Alegría, trumpet, flugelhorn, guapeo, vocals;
Laura Andrea Leguía, soprano and tenor saxophones, guapeo,
vocals; Freddy “Huevito” Lobatón, cajón, quijada, cajita, campana,
guapeo, vocals; Yuri Juárez, acoustic and electric guitars, vocals;
Hugo Alcázar; drums, guapeo, vocals (1-4,6-8); Shirazette Tinnin;
drums (5, 9, 10); Ron Carter, bass (1, 4, 8); John Benitez, bass (2,
3, 7); Essiet Essiet, bass (5, 6, 9,10); Russell Ferrante, keyboards (6,
8); Arturo O’Farrill, piano (6, 10); Felix Valdelomar, guapeo, vocals
(3, 7); Octavio Castillo, steel guitar (3), kalimba (9); Daniel Susnjar,
second drum set (7); Pepe Villalobos, guapeo, vocals (3); Rosita
Guzmán, guapeo, vocals (3); Gustavo Urbina, guitar, vocals (8);
Badal Roy, tablas (6, 9), voice of the drum (9).
Ordering info: zohomusic.com
Adam Rogers &
David Binney
Matt Lavelle/Jack
DeSalvo/Tom Cabrera
CRISS CROSS JAZZ 1379
UNSEEN RAIN 9962
+++½
++++
Listeners buying this album based on
the title alone might be surprised to
find that this is not a collection of
Little Richard covers. Instead, it is
compilation of swing and bop classics
recorded by Rogers (guitarist Adam)
and Binney (saxophonist David).
Bolstered by bassist Reuben Rogers
(no relation) and drummer Gerald Cleaver, this album is still a surprise.
There are no original compositions from the quartet, just nine standards
direct from a Jazz 101 course stretching back to the 1930s. They all receive
fairly straightforward performances, allowing the co-leaders ample space to
stretch out on familiar material. Binney, in regard to Rogers, states in the
liner notes that he has “never played as much unison with anyone in [his]
life.” Their comfort with each other is apparent from the first note of Charlie
Parker’s “Ah-Leu-Cha,” a brisk back-and-forth that pairs nicely with Miles
Davis’ “Sippin’ At Bell’s” several cuts later. The band gets furthest out with
“My Ship,” with Adam Rogers plucking delightfully cosmic dissonances
and Reuben Rogers getting a sweet turn in the spotlight, and on an interpretation of Gordon Parks’ “Don’t Misunderstand,” Binney gets downright
romantic, fluttering over Cleaver’s understated brushes. This is an accessible
date with four guys who could play like this all night long—and likely have.
Unexpected but welcome.
—Sean J. O’Connell
Given that Matt Lavelle has studied
with Ornette Coleman, and that
Jack DeSalvo spent time in Ronald
Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society,
one might expect their group with
percussionist Tom Cabrera to flex
some harmolodic muscle. But if they
do, it’s not by playing like their mentors. While certain precedents are evident—the Bill Dixon-esque contrasts
of space and density, the blend of swing and Middle Eastern rhythms made
famous by Rabih Abou-Khalil—these musicians don’t really sound like anyone else.
What they don’t do is as important as what they do. Cabrera’s kit includes
doumbek, frame drum and riq, but his playing doesn’t trade on exoticism.
Rather, he uses the sonic qualities of each sparingly to create shifting patterns
out of texture and implication. DeSalvo completes the rhythms with similarly spare phrases plucked from his cello and mandola. On brass and alto clarinet, Lavelle draws out his notes long enough to bring attention to the subtle
variations he can exude within a single breath. The persistence of these tones
means that when he does break into quicker phrases, the effect is galvanizing. While the music is collectively improvised, it aims for and achieves the
directness of song.
—Bill Meyer
R&B
R&B: Ah-Leu-Cha; Introspection; In Love In Vain; Africaine; Don’t Misunderstand; Sippin’ At Bell’s;
Skydive; My Ship; I Feel A Song Coming On. (67:24)
Personnel: Adam Rogers, guitar; David Binney, alto saxophone; Reuben Rogers, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums.
Ordering info: crisscrossjazz.com
Sumari
Sumari: Seth Dance; Counterparts Are Comparatively Encountered; Scientific Cults And Private
Paranoias; Reincarnational Civilizations; Alternate Presents And Multiple Focus; The Gates Of Horn; The
Nature Of Mass Events. (66:06)
Personnel: Matt Lavelle, trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, pocket trumpet, alto clarinet; Jack DeSalvo, cello,
guitar, mandola; Tom Cabrera, doumbek, riq, frame drum, tar, bass drum, percussion.
Ordering info: unseenrainrecords.com
Vinicius Cantuária
Joshua Breakstone
SUNNYSIDE 1428
CAPRI 74137
Recorded in Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro,
with an international cast of guest
vocalists and instrumentalists, Vinicius
Cantuária’s tribute to bossa nova master
Antonio Carlos Jobim proves that the
style “Tom” birthed in the early 1960s is
now music of the world: timeless, evocative and forever dreamlike.
A brilliant interpreter of the Jobim oeuvre, Cantuária’s rich vocals, sizzling acoustic guitar and subtle percussion express the eternal bossa nova
vision with deep intuition.
An album of pristine Jobim covers featuring Cantuária’s vocals and guitar would have been enough, but the guest musicians add another layer of
expression to the deserving Jobim songbook. Popular Brazilian vocalist
Joyce Moreno joins Cantuária for a dreamy “Caminhos Cruzados,” and the
song’s highlight is a breathtaking acoustic solo by guitarist Chico Pinheiro,
whose ringing, rising notes are pure sun-streaked bliss. Bill Frisell works his
warped electric country magic on “Só Danço Samba,” a buoyant pulse that
floats on the Rio breeze, lovely and clear, and American jazz-pop vocalist
Melody Gardot balances “Insensatez” with her tremulous coo. Cantuária
closes with “Você Vai Ver,” completing his masterpiece, mystery intact.
—Ken Micallef
Ever since his first recording as a
leader (1983’s Wonderful!), Joshua
Breakstone has remained one of
the most consistent of all jazz guitarists. He has never strayed from
the straightahead path, holding his
own with veteran greats (including Barry Harris, Kenny Barron,
Pepper Adams, Jimmy Knepper and Jack McDuff) all while maintaining an
attractively clean tone and an unhurried style.
2nd Avenue is a follow-up of sorts to 2013’s With The Wind And The Rain.
The latter found cellist Mike Richmond joining Breakstone’s trio, which at
the time included bassist Lisle Atkinson and drummer Eliot Zigmund. This
new disc features the same lineup, except with Andy Watson on drums.
The repertoire is inspired, including worthy obscurities by Lee Konitz
(“Thingin’” which is the saxophonist’s melody line on “All The Things You
Are”), Cannonball Adderley (“Home”), Dexter Gordon (“Evergreenish”)
and Sonny Clark (“My Conception”). The guitarist is particularly rewarding on the two ballads (“I Wish I Knew” and “My Conception”), keeping the
music interesting by letting the melodies breathe. He is also equally skilled
on the uptempo tunes, such as the witty “I’m An Old Cowhand,” the cooking
“The Lamp Is Low” and his lengthy “2nd Ave: Blues For Imahori.”
Atkinson and Watson also have their brief spots, but 2nd Avenue is primarily a fine showcase for Breakstone.
—Scott Yanow
Vinicius Canta Antonio
Carlos Jobim
++++½
Vinicius Canta Antonio Carlos Jobim: Lígia; Caminhos Cruzados; Vivo Sonhando; Só Danço
Samba; Eu Não Existo Sem Você; Este Seu Olhar; Retrato Em Branco E Preto; Por Causa De Você; Garota
De Ipanema; Felicidade; Insensatez; Inútil Paisagem; Você Vai Ver. (39:55)
Personnel: Vinicius Cantuária, vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, percussion; Bill Frisell (4, 12),
Ricardo Silveira (9), electric guitars; Ryuichi Sakamoto, piano (5, 8); Joyce (2), Melody Gardot (11), vocals:
Chico Pinheiro (2), Celso Fonseca (3), acoustic guitars; Ryoji Orihara, electric bass (7); Jyoji Sawada,
double bass (1); Ayumi Hashimoto, cello (6).
2nd Avenue: The Return
Of The Cello Quartet
++++
2nd Avenue: Thingin’; Home; I’m An Old Cowhand; I Wish I Knew; Evergreenish; The Lamp Is Low; Hit
It; My Conception; 2nd Ave: Blues For Imahori. (71:07)
Personnel: Joshua Breakstone, guitar; Mike Richmond, cello (1–3, 5, 7); Lisle Atkinson, bass; Andy
Watson, drums.
Ordering info: caprirecords.com
Blues /
BY FRANK-JOHN HADLEY
More Soulful Than Most
Delta Moon, Low Down (Jumping Jack 1201S; 45:11 ++++)
The 10th album by this bluesrock band in Atlanta follows the
game plan of previous efforts by
sustaining a musical atmosphere
of swampland sultriness. The
potency of guitar work by Tom
Gray and Mark Johnson remains
strong, and their riffs are compellingly coherent. Gray sings nine
equally impressive original songs
in a sandpapered rasp that’s salve
for the affective aches and urgenJoseph (left), Vic Stafford, Tom
cies acknowledged throughout Franher
Gray and Mark Johnson of Delta Moon
his thoughtful lyrics. Their best album also shines for a memorable
take on Skip James’ “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.” Ordering info: voodavis.com
The Texas Horns, Blues Gotta Holda Me
Ordering info: deltamoon.com
Layla Zoe, Live At Spirit Of 66 (Cable Car (Vizztone TH01; 51:02 +++½ ) The Texas
0311-46; 43:32/50:13 +++½ ) A Canadian often Horns, around since 1999 but only now releasing a
on tour in Europe, Layla Zoe may be the most pas- debut album, are more blues-oriented than similar
sionate blues singer anywhere. Here she gives it horn bands of high quality like Lavay Smith & Her
her all in front of her ponderous, stuck-on-Hendrix Red Hot Skillet Lickers and Mike Merola’s City Boys
German power-trio in a Belgian club. Even as her Allstars. Saxophonists Mark Kazanoff and John
immense lung power keeps the volume sky-high, Mills and trumpeter Al Gomez are to be admired for
Zoe keeps sight of the emotional core of nerve-end their high spirit and their ability to shuffle, swing,
startling original compositions about self-preser- second-line and stomp in-house tunes (many are
vation, lovers, afterlife and her Canadian roots. instrumentals) along with artifacts originating with
Knowing the importance of aching sensitivity to Louis Jordan, Percy and Curtis Mayfield and Earl
modern blues, the singer also commands attention King. Kazanoff proves to be an unremarkable voin a quiet mode on a couple tracks, including most calist, so it’s fortunate that luminaries Marcia Ball
of an 18-minute feminization of James Brown’s “It’s and W. C. Clark stopped by to sing a song apiece.
Ordering info: vizztone.com
A Man’s World.”
Danielle Nicole, Wolf Den (Concord
Ordering info: cablecarrecords.com
Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys, Voya- 36460; 51:01 +++½ ) Ex-Trampled Under Foot
geurs (Self Release; 61:46 ++++) Accordion singer-bassist Danielle Nicole strikes out on her
master Steve Riley and his feisty troupe of South own under the watchful eye of guitarist-producLouisianans are worth slogging on foot through er Anders Osborne in funky New Orleans. There’s
acres of marshes to hear in person, especially if plenty to be thankful for, starting with Nicole’s asthey’re performing songs off their 14th album. sured vocals and the level of presence and control
As an excellent Cajun folk band with Creole r&b in her delivery. The songs, most penned by Nicole
leanings, the Playboys rely on old bayou musical and Osborne, are a satisfying bunch except for a
tricks—for starters, striking accordion, fiddle and misguided stab at arena-rock profundity, “Didn’t
guitar textures –to stir the roux of originals and Do You No Good.” If Etta James were alive, she
newly powered-up versions of Lafayette Parish would likely approve of Nicole’s version of “Breaktunes. But the status quo gets flipped by the Celt- ing Up Somebody’s Home” but tell Nicole to be
ic-sounding “Malcolm’s Reel” and by the bluesy more vigilant about the hazards of histrionics.
rocker “Bottle It Up,” two songs by band fiddler Ordering info: concordmusicgroup.com
Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, Larry
Kevin Wimmer requiring Riley to use a new custom-made accordion that allowed him access to Campbell & Teresa Williams (Red House 285;
once-unreachable sharps and flats.
44:00 +++½ ) Tendering their first album for
Ordering info: mamouplayboys.com
approval, Larry Campbell (who’s worked with Bob
Voo Davis, Midnight Mist (Butter & Ba- Dylan, many others) and his wife Teresa Williams
con; 62:52 +++½ ) An exercise in modern blues- are fast becoming the new darlings of Americana
rock, Voo Davis’ third album, recorded in Louisiana, with their clean and melodic singing on pure, intelhas affinities to albums by The Allman Brothers ligent songs composed by Williams. They radiate,
Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yet this native Alabam- too, when reviving Rev. Gary Davis’ rendition of
an based in Chicago isn’t some rank emulator; in- “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.” Reminisstead, he brings his likeable, individualized vocals cent at times of husband-wife acts Richard & Linda
and guitar exhilarations to bear on hardwearing Thompson and Maria & Geoff Muldaur, the two are
self-penned numbers that carry his own Southern wholly successful in creating a fresh music out of
blues moods. Davis is convincing whether hewing folk, gospel, blues and pure country music.
DB
to full-tilt or easy-does-it tempos.
Ordering info: redhouserecords.com
Giovanni Guidi Trio
This Is The Day
ECM 2403 4709271
+++
From the first notes of the opening track to the
echo-drenched fade of the final chord, This Is The
Day radiates a multilayered beauty. Every note
glistens, and Manfred Eicher’s production caresses the silences left by each musician, so that each
pause is like a breath being held, eloquent in its
emptiness.
All three musicians work the spaces between
their notes masterfully. “Carried Away” begins
with Thomas Morgan’s unaccompanied bass,
played unhurriedly for about a minute. The tone
alone induces a kind of spell, full of wood and
air, deep and dark. Then the listener notices that
Morgan is playing the theme of the piece doubled by Guidi in the upper midrange of the piano.
They move together for a few seconds, sketching
out a minor-key melody, after which they drift
into their own ruminations, with drummer João
Lobo adding some atmospheric mallet taps and
cymbal whispers. All three ease in and out of free
time. And then it evaporates, leaving a meditative
silence as its memory.
Just about every moment of This Is The Day is
gorgeous. Whether extemporizing freely or working with dolorous Spanish-sounding themes
articulated with minor sixths (“Where They’d
Lived,” “The Night It Rained Forever”), the trio
maintains a bucolic vibe.
A creepy scenario unfolds on “The Cobweb,”
with brushes scuttling on a snare and Morgan’s
bass wandering like a shadow across a darkened
kitchen floor. On another track, all three musicians play freely but without seeming to listen to
what the others are doing, each being too wrapped
up in his own soliloquy. Guidi’s piano rambles
almost atonally, as if spouting nonsense, then
splits into different lines that heat up as if in an
angry dialog. The title? “The Debate.”
Think of This Is The Day as a single work. Then
slip into the still waters and enjoy.
—Bob Doerschuk
This Is The Day: Trilly; Carried Away; Game Of Silence; The
Cobweb; Baiiia; The Debate; Where They’d Lived; Quizas Quizas
Quizas; Migration; Trilly Var.; I’m Through With Love; The Night It
Rained Forever. (77:23)
Personnel: Giovanni Guidi, piano; Thomas Morgan, bass; João
Lobo, drums.
Devin Gray
Lazer Lloyd
SKIRL 029
LOTS OF LOVE
Relative Resonance
Lazer Llyod
++++
+++½
Drummer Devin Gray mastered his
chops during years spent in Baltimore,
and even though he relocated to New York
in 2006, he took his time developing his
own projects there. His terrific 2012 debut
Dirigo Rataplan was made with a group of
players with deep ties to Baltimore—bassist Michael Formanek, saxophonist Ellery
Eskelin and trumpeter Dave Ballou—but his dazzling new album proves beyond any
doubt that he’s found his groove in the Big Apple. On Relative Resonance he leads a
powerful band—reedist Chris Speed, pianist Kris Davis and bassist Chris Tordini—
through eight knotty originals that reflect the influence composers with a penchant
for extended, shape-shifting themes: Tim Berne and Henry Threadgill.
Sometimes Speed and Davis play spindly independent lines, simulating a kind of
torn Möbius strip, which each flailing end desperately seeking to reconnect. Those
bobbing-and-weaving lines are set within frenetic but tightly coiled high-energy
grooves (with shades of Jim Black apparent). On a track like “In The Cut” the beats
simulate the fractured patterns of drum-and-bass, with Tordini’s stabbing figures
at once clinging to the drummer’s lines while reach out harmonically to Speed and
Davis, who play fluid, snaking solos, before the tempo cools and the melodists join
together to state the reconstituted, decelerated head. “Notester” is another time-tripper, with the rhythm section stretching the groove like taffy, while on the rather open
“Undo The Redo” he hints at a rubato feel all the way through. Relative Resonance, a
phrase borrowed from Elvin Jones, is detail-rich and rigorous, requiring serious
attention and paying serious dividends in kind.
—Peter Margasak
Lazer Lloyd is a solid improviser and a
charismatic performer who eschews
the face-pulling acrobatics that lead
guitarists often fall prey to. In performance, he tends to stand in one place,
rocking back and forth as he unspools
his intricate single-note runs and
stinging bent-note phrases. The guitarist is supported by the rhythms of bass
man Moshe Davidson and drummer Elimelech Grundman, but it’s his exuberant vocals and razor-sharp guitar work that gives the music its energy.
“Rockin’ In The Holy Land” is a bluesy stomp driven by Grundman’s
four-on-the-floor backbeat, a jubilant singalong chorus and an extended solo
from Lloyd that slides from the Mississippi delta to brittle, staccato Chuck
Berry-like fills. His quiet acoustic take on Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The
Dock Of The Bay” features a vocal that’s a consummate display of understated grief. Album opener “Burning Thunder” and the follow-up “Suffering” are
full of anger and frustration. Lloyd’s tension-filled solos match the emotional
tenor of the songs, portraying a soul torn between the desire for release and a
tendency to keep repeating self-destructive patterns.
Lloyd gives sway to his spiritual side on the jazzy r&b-flavored “Whole
Heart” and “Time To Love,” a late-night groove that slowly builds to deliver one of the record’s most frenzied solos. Lloyd’s playing has echoes of many
blues, rock and jazz greats, with hints of Berry, Albert King, Jimi Hendrix
and Wes Montgomery floating through the mix.
—j. poet
Relative Resonance: City Nothing City; In the Cut: Notester; Jungle Design; Transatlantic Transitions; Undo The Redo: Relative Resonance; Search it Up. (52:41)
Personnel: Devin Gray, drums; Chris Speed, tenor saxophone, clarinet; Kris Davis, piano; Chris Tordini,
bass.
Ordering info: skirlrecords.com
Lazer Lloyd: Burning Thunder; Suffering; Rockin’ In The Holy Land; Never Give Up; Out Of Time;
Broken Dreams; Set My Soul Free; (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay; Moroccan Women; Love Yourself;
Time To Love; Whole Heart. (56:00)
Personnel: Lazer Lloyd, guitar, vocals, harmonica; Moshe Davidson, bass; Elimelech Grundman,
drums; Kfir Tsairi, keyboards (2, 3, 4, 5).
Ordering Information: lazerlloyd.com
David Cook
Scenic Design
BROOKLYN JAZZ UNDERGROUND 055
+++½
Scenic Design, the second disc from
pianist David Cook, is beautiful in its
simplicity. That sentiment may be surprising, considering Cook has worked
as music director for high-flash pop
acts like Taylor Swift and Jennifer
Hudson. But on this disc, his jazz sensibilities are completely removed from
arena pop. Cook showcases slowly
expanding music, using each track to develop well-planned aural ideas.
On Cook’s uptempo tunes—the whirling “Shift,” the in-the-pocket “’80s
TV Theme Song”—his playing is deliberate. The music never gets away from
the pianist, and he seems most comfortable letting his ideas ferment and
expand at slower speeds. This isn’t to say Scenic Design doesn’t have its madcap moments; on “Shift,” Cook and his supporting cast of trumpeter David
Smith and saxophonist Ben Wendel create vertiginous, acrobatic solos full of
rushing notes. Cook relies on his sidemen to elevate his compositions. One
of the best examples of this is “Safe & Sound,” a duet with Smith. The tune
begins with an interlocking, pointillistic introduction, then leads into a soaring solo trumpet melody. This push-and-pull creates tension, propelling the
music forward in a way not heard on other tunes on the disc.
Scenic Design showcases a well-rounded pianist continuing to develop
new ideas. Though Cook is most compelling when crafting soft ballads, his
compositional ideas translate well to more spirited songs.
—Jon Ross
Scenic Design: Flower+Hope; 80s TV Theme Song; Shift; I Know You Know; Scenic Design; Long Ago
& Far Away; Safe & Sound; Midwestern; Still. (47:06)
Personnel: David Cook, piano; David Smith, trumpet; Ben Wendel, tenor saxophone; Matt Clohesy,
bass; Kendrick Scott, drums; Shayna Steele, vocals (4).
Ordering info: bjurecords.com
Brad Myers
Prime Numbers
COLLOQUY 1357
++++
Veteran guitarist Myers
exhibits old-school soulfulness, a highly syncopated sense of comping and a
relaxed sense of swing on his
long-overdue debut as a leader. With vibraphonist Chris
Barrick joining him on the
front line alongside tenor saxophonist Ben Walkenhauer, Myers spins warm, deliberate lines on his Grant
Green-flavored opener, “Bentley’s Blues,” as well as on winning interpretations of Wayne Shorter’s “The Big Push” and Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence.”
There’s also a tip of the hat to Monk on the quirky, tempo-shifting “Spherical,”
which serves as a potent solo vehicle for drummer Tom Buckley.
Walkenhauer distinguishes himself as a blistering soloist on Myers’ opus
“Rules Of Three,” and delivers with poignant lyricism on the crystalline ballad “You Are Here.” The guitarist shows tasty restraint in his solos on two
bossa nova originals, “Sunset In Curaçao” and “There Is Space For Us,”
and Barrick contributes a striking, rhythmically shifting arrangement of
Bronislaw Kaper’s oft-covered classic “Invitation.” This swinging session,
anchored by the fundamental bass grooves of bassist Peter Gemus, marries
modernist ideas with a straightahead sound.
—Bill Milkowski
Prime Numbers: Bentley’s Blues; Evidence; Sunset in Curaçao; Spherical; Rule Of Threes; The Big
Push; You Are Here; There Is Space For Us; Invitation. (67:01)
Personnel: Brad Myers, guitar; Chris Barrick, vibraphone; Ben Walkenhauer, tenor saxophone; Peter
Gemus, bass; Tom Buckley, drums; Michael Mavridoglou, trumpet (5, 8); Dominic Marino, trombone (5).
Ordering info: musicbybrad.com
Beyond /
BY JOE TANGARI
From the Fields
The term “field recording”
encompasses
many types of captured
sounds and noises, but
what all field recordings
share in common is a
connection to time and
place. Five new albums
employ field recordings
for very different purposes and from wildly
different sources, but
all five vividly capture
the spirit of where they
came from.
Lawrence
English’s Viento (Taiga
029; 35:09 +++)
attempts to document
the forlorn, windswept
landscapes of Antarctica, where the Australian sound artist visited
to make this project.
“Patagonia” captures
Zomba Prison Project
the banging of metal
on metal; it feels as
though the structure it was recorded from is precarious. In “Antarctica,” the wind is unceasing, creating a stark sense that this is a not a place one
would survive without strong shelter.
note to note in an otherworldly reminder of the
music that may be about to fade away as this generation dies away and leaves behind a globalized
nation.
Ordering info: lawrenceenglish.com
Ordering info: glitterbeat.com
Music Of Tanzania (Sublime Frequencies 096; 61:32 +++½ ) is perhaps the most
traditional documentarian release of the five,
consisting of field recordings gathered by sound
artist Laurent Jeanneau between December 1999
and March 2000. It captures the music of several
marginal ethnic groups from the country’s vast
hinterlands, the Datoga, the Makonde, the Hadza
and the Mtwara. The Hadza are still people of the
bush, and their thumb piano music is hypnotic;
other sounds include bowed strings, shakers, singing and dancing. The second LP is devoted to long
recordings of Makonde and Mtwara ceremonies.
The Mtwara peoples’ singing and flutes bear distant traces of Arabic music in their modal melodies.
This is music of people constantly on the edge of
losing their way of life, and it’s hard to know how
much longer it will be around in this form.
Zomba Prison Project’s I Have No Everything Here (Six Degrees 19379; 31:25 ++++)
dives deep into the world of a neglected population of inmates and guards at a prison in Malawi.
Many prisoners and guards (male and female)
recorded here have regular access to instruments,
and while Stefano Nyerenda’s rap on “Women
Today Take Care of Business” sounds bracingly ofthe-moment musically, most of the others prefer
a more basic guitar-and-voice approach, singing
sweetly songs whose melodic grace is undercut
by titles such as “I See The Whole World Dying of
AIDS,” an ebullient song sung over cycling guitar
by a guard named Ines Kaunde.
Ordering info: sublimefrequencies.com
War Is A Wound, Peace Is A Scar (Glitterbeat 021; 35:39 ++++) features recordings of
various artists that the producers collectively label
Hanoi Masters. It intimately captures a handful of
elderly veteran singers and instrumentalists singing about the Vietnam War. Americans are rarely
exposed to this viewpoint, and though the words
are in Vietnamese, a haunted sense of loss lives
inside these voices. The stringed instruments embrace microtonality, their melodies slurring from
Michael Gibbs and
the NDR Bigband
Play A Bill Frisell Set List
CUNEIFORM RECORDS RUNE 400
SIX DEGREES RECORDS
++++
Ordering info: sixdegreesrecords.com
Finally, Glassine’s No Stairway (Patient
Sounds 073; +++½ ) takes an interpretive approach to field recording. To compose this album,
the Baltimore-based artist rearranged surreptitiously captured recordings of people showing off
their guitar skills (and their inevitable attempts at
Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”) at the music
retail store Guitar Center. The resulting soundscape artfully reconstructs the often bewildering
sonic environment of an instrument store into
hazy, atmospheric instrumental sketches that emphasize the distance between people as they fill
DB
the same space with sound.
Ordering info: glassinemusic.bandcamp.com
At the 2013 Überjazz Festival in Hamburg,
Germany, conductor Michael Gibbs and the NDR
Bigband sought to answer a burning question:
How much fire could a large ensemble bring to a
typical Bill Frisell set? Would the extra instrumentation ruin the guitarist’s aesthetic? With Frisell at
the helm, the band played through his own compositions, standards and favorite covers—proving
that, yes, bigger can sometimes be better.
On tracks like “Throughout” and “On The
Lookout/Far Away,” the ethereal, floating textures of Frisell’s work expertly translate to a large
ensemble; the added instrumentation instills the
atmospheric chords with depth. Gibbs holds the
ensemble at bay, propping up Frisell and each
soloist; the superbly blended backgrounds move as
one, focusing all attention to the featured players.
The soloists really make this performance. On
Frisell’s “Throughout,” tenor saxophonist Christof
Lauer takes Frisell’s sprawling guitar lines, compresses them and speeds everything up. His solo
works well because the bit of manic playing comes
out of a sublimely peaceful tune. Lauer returns
with a more subdued demeanor on “Subconscious
Lee.” The ensemble playing on this tune teeters on
the edge of collapse for a bit, but a string of clearly articulated phrases keeps everything together.
The band might be at its best in the more tender moments of Frisell’s aesthetic. Frisell’s fragile
introduction of “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love
Away” turns into a poignant cover of the Beatles
tune when the entire band enters, rising in volume but never getting overly aggressive. By laying
back and letting Frisell’s music shine, Gibbs and
the NDR Bigband have created an essential entry
in Frisell’s oeuvre.
—Jon Ross
Play A Bill Frisell Set List: Throughout; Las Vegas Tango;
Subconcious Lee; On The Lookout/Far Away; Misterioso; Monica
Jane; You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away; Benny’s Bugle; Freddy’s
Step. (61:06)
Personnel: Michael Gibbs, conductor; Bill Frisell, Stephan Diez,
guitar; Jeff Ballard, drums; Thorsten Benkenstein, Ingolf Burkhardt,
Felix Meyer, Michael Leuschner, trumpet, flugelhorn; Fiete Felsch,
Peter Bolte, alto saxophone, flute; Christof Lauer, tenor and soprano
saxophones; Lutz Buchner, tenor saxophone, clarinet; Thomas
Gramatzki, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet; Dan Gottshall, Klaus
Heidenreich, Stefan Lottermann, trombone; Ingo Lahme, bass
trombone, tuba; Ingmar Heller, bass; Vladyslav Sendecki, piano;
Marcio Doctor, percussion.
Ordering info: cuneiformrecords.com
Roberto Magris
John Hollenbeck
JMOOD 010
SUNNYSIDE 1412
Italian pianist Roberto Magris, who
prides himself on having played
with such legends as drummers
Albert “Tootie” Heath and Idris
Muhammad, as well as saxophonist
Herb Geller, goes modern and groovy
on Enigmatix, his intriguing foray
into complex funk and pop. Here,
he works with bassist Dominique
Sanders, drummer Brian Steever and percussionist Pablo Sanhueza, whose
congas give the tunes heft and a faint Latin accent.
Magris is a player of considerable flair. His right hand is a wonder; check
out how he embellishes Monique Danielle’s vocals on “No Sadness,” how he
builds the Stevie Wonder tune “My Cherie Amour” into a big statement, how
he modulates the groove of both versions of the title track with fast, high cascades. As a soloist, Magris doesn’t skimp on his improvisations, but fortunately stops short of floridity. Even on the Monkish “J.F. No Key,” he stays
on course, maintaining control as the tune shifts mood and meter. The song
showcases the band’s strengths: confident rhythms (the drums-bass interplay is consistently delicious), Magris’ easy authority and a constant sense of
joy. The one anomaly is “Counterparts,” where Magris fastens onto a stark
descending figure as his rhythm section works around him, shifting sonority and attack every few bars. Were this band less inventive, the cut would be
boring. It’s not.
—Carlo Wolff
Joining forces again with inventive singers Kate McGarry and Theo Bleckmann
and keyboard wizard Uri Caine, drummer
John Hollenbeck stands on the podium
here, not behind his kit, and indulges deeply in philosophical meditations (often mesmerizing but academic) on midcentury pop
anthems, with asides in Rumi and Pharrell Williams.
Hollenbeck’s organic building blocks are all in place: clear lines layered and
overlapped, entwining unisons, pointillistic starscapes, fractaled arpeggios;
these approaches echo his chamber pieces and draw on Bob Brookmeyer’s composing concept of single-cell lasering into infinity.
Joy bursts from the opening arpeggios and antiphonals on “How Can I Keep
From Singing,” a Christian hymn repurposed by the late Pete Seeger, then
fold into a wordless duo between Bleckmann and Steffen Webber’s tenor sax.
Bleckmann’s bald, creamy autovox limns the verse of Cyndi Lauper’s “True
Colors” before McGarry breaks into the song's familiar chorus, with Tony
Lakatos’ sax filigree interspersed throughout.
“Constant Conversation” opens with side-drum patterns in something like
13/4 and vocals reading the words of mystic poet Rumi over fluttering brass.
“Close To You” moves as a dead-slow dirge for McGarry’s voice, over which
textured asides and polyphonic fantasias trump melody line. Comic relief
bursts in as a fragment of arcane humor, translating Daft Punk/Pharrell
Williams’ “Get Lucky” into vocoder Russian.
—Fred Bouchard
Enigmatix: Enigmatix—Part 1; Counterparts; No Sadness; J.F. No Key; Enigmatix—Part 2; My Cherie
Amour; Do It Again. (66:12)
Personnel: Roberto Magris, piano; Dominique Sanders, acoustic and electric bass; Pablo Sanhueza,
congas and percussion; Brian Steever, drums; Monique Danielle, vocals (3).
Ordering info: jmoodrecords.com
Songs We Like A Lot: How Can I Keep From Singing?; True Colors; Constant Conversation; Close To
You; Get Lucky Manifesto; The Snow ls Deep On The Ground; Up, Up And Away. (57:08)
Personnel: Kate McGarry, Theo Bleckmann, vocals; Uri Caine, piano, organ; Gary Versace, melodica,
organ; Frankfurt Radio Big Band.
Ordering info: johnhollenbeck.com
Enigmatix
+++½
Songs We Like A Lot
+++½
Steve Slagle & Bill O’Connell
The Power Of Two
PANORAMA 005
+++½
The Power Of Two had its genesis on Aug. 3, 2014,
the day that pianist Kenny Drew Jr. passed away
at just 56 years old. Steve Slagle was so moved
by Drew’s premature death that he immediately
composed “KD Jr.,” a song that is both melancholy
and more upbeat than one might expect. While it
mourns Drew’s passing, it also celebrates his life
and musical legacy.
“KD Jr.” became the inspiration for The Power
Of Two, a set of duets with pianist Bill O’Connell.
Consisting of five Slagle originals, O’Connell’s
“A New Day,” a brief free improvisation and four
songs from other sources, The Power Of Two
builds and extends upon the mood set by “KD
Jr.” The feeling of melancholia permeates the
more lyrical performances, particularly the medium-tempo ballad “One Life,” as well as the concise
rendition of the standard “I’ll Wait And Pray” and
the spirited original “Into Your Grace.”
However, this duet set also explores other
moods and tempos. The opening “Good News” is
a bluesy number with a scalar melody and altered
chords, and features a downward motion felt
throughout the performance. “A New Day” captures some of Slagle’s most heated playing along
with hints of Keith Jarrett in O’Connell’s solo.
Miles Davis’ “Circle” gets a rare revival and still
sounds modern nearly a half-century after its
debut. And the title track has a complex melody
worthy of the late Ornette Coleman, along with
some intense improvising.
In addition to his distinctive alto playing,
Slagle displays fluency and individuality on flute
during Bill Evans’ playful “Peri’s Scope,” Dave
Brubeck’s “The Duke” and the brief, free-form
“Whistling Spirits.” While O’Connell is often in a
supportive role, his very attentive playing and quietly inventive ideas should not be overlooked. He
proves to be a perfect musical partner for Slagle
during this thoughtful outing.
—Scott Yanow
The Power Of Two: Good News; One Life; Peri’s Scope; I’ll Wait
And Pray; A New Day; KD Jr; The Power Of Two; The Duke; Circle;
Into Your Grace; Whistling Spirits. (53:30)
Personnel: Steve Slagle, alto saxophone, flute; Bill O’Connell,
piano.
Ordering info: steveslagle.com
Pascal Niggenkemper
Solo: Look With Thine Ears
CLEAN FEED 324
++++
Franco-German bassist Pascal Niggenkemper has
called New York City home for the past decade,
and has spent half of that time honing the singular approach to his instrument that is showcased on this CD. He recorded it shortly after a
gig in which he accompanied a production of
King Lear, and that experience likely influenced
this music as strongly as his metropolitan environs. Shakespeare indulged in precipitous shifts of
mood and tone throughout his plays, and a walk
through the Big Apple’s notoriously lively streets
is an opportunity to experience a no-quarter
bombardment of sights and sounds.
Niggenkemper makes something similar
happen in real time with his acoustic bass. He
uses a host of unspecified treatments to expand
his instrument’s voice to encompass buzzes, rattles and woofer-rupturing groans, and employs
his remarkable technique to make it sound more
like an ensemble than a single instrument. As
befits a man who has worked with both Weasel
Walter and Maria Schneider, he doesn’t stay too
long in one sonic space. He bows harmonics with
the percussive insistence of a telegraph key operator on the title track, and then follows it up with
a savagely distorted blast that’s more reminiscent
of Colin Stetson’s baritone sax barrages than any
string piece one might name. At the other end
of the energy spectrum, he uses patient pluck70 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2015
ing and a light shower of rattles to sound like the
duet album that Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell
should have made but never did on the gorgeously
solemn “Unpublished Virtues Of The Earth.” This
track is key to this record’s enduring appeal. It’s
not just an exposition of extended techniques; it
uses those methods to express a range of deeply
felt emotions.
—Bill Meyer
Look With Thine Ears: Look With Thine Ears; This Shall Not Be
Revoked; If You Will Marry, Make Your Love To Me; Men Of Stone;
At Fortune’s Alms; Let Me Kiss Your Hand; Let Me Wipe It First, It
Smells Of Mortality; Unpublished Virtues Of The Earth; Sharper
Than A Serpent’s Tooth; Be This Perpetual; Blow Wind And Crack
Your Cheeks;Let The Fork Invade The Region Of My Heart; Let Me
Still Remain The True Blank Of Thine Eye. (55:24)
Personnel: Pascal Niggenkemper, bass.
Ordering info: cleanfeed-records.com
Benny Green
Live In Santa Cruz!
SUNNYSIDE 1401
++++
Benny Green may be the most accessible piano
player since Gene Harris. At least, that’s one of
the many lessons offered by Live In Santa Cruz!,
Green’s latest live disc.
Recorded at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on the
20th anniversary of Green’s performance there
with the Ray Brown Trio, this is transparency in
the best sense of the word. In his music, and in
his boyish enthusiasm between songs (in which
he assures his audience that they’re beautiful), he
emanates positivity.
On uptempo numbers, rather than flaunt his
virtuosity, he seems almost surprised and delighted by the powers at his command. At a rapid-fire clip, his left-hand attack is sharp; he might
emphatically jab a low note or an open fifth to
punctuate the groove, as on “Certainly.” But it’s
not his dexterity that impresses most; it’s his intelligence. Racing through changes in brisk, even
16th notes, he never sounds repetitious except
where repetition is deliberate.
“Bish Bash” showcases the group’s compatability. When Green invents a figure with triplet
accents, bassist David Wong maintains his eighthnote walk while drummer Kenny Washington
recreates the triplet feel on bass drum and cymbal
without a moment’s pause.
A different light illuminates the ballads.
Heavy pedaling behind dense clusters, tremolos and smears add plenty of juice to the medium-tempo “Phoebe’s Samba,” but on “Cactus
Flower” the delicate tone sounds as if Green was
playing another piano. He maintains this hushed
approach on “Golden Flamingo,” the better to
allow Washington to shine on brushes.
The final ingredients of Green’s accessibility
are his compositions and their brevity. He wrote
all nine tracks, each with a nicely crafted first verse
and a scenic roadmap for solos. The longest track
is “Anna’s Blues,” hitting five-and-a-half minutes
at the end. But by that point, with the crowd clapping along to the joyous shuffle beat, even that
feels a little too short.
—Bob Doerschuk
Live In Santa Cruz!: Certainly; Phoebe’s Samba; Cactus Flower;
Sonny Clark; Golden Flamingo; Tales Of Malone; Forgiveness; Bish
Bash; Anna’s Blues. (42:13)
Personnel: Benny Green, piano; David Wong, bass; Kenny
Washington, drums.
Ordering Info: sunnysidezone.com
Hamilton de Holanda
World Of Pixinguinha
ADVENTURE MUSIC 10912
++++
Relatively unknown in the United States, saxophonist Alfredo da Rocha Viana Jr., also known
as Pixinguinha, was Brazil’s first true pop star,
taking advantage of the new technologies of
radio and recording in early 20th Century Rio
de Janeiro. Pixinguinha blended earlier variants
of the choro style with jazz-like harmonies and
sophisticated arrangements, eventually touring
with the group Oito Batutas to great acclaim in
Europe. On World Of Pixinguinha, the strength
and beauty of Pixinguinha’s music is wonderfully realized by Brazilian mandolin (or mandolim)
master Hamilton de Holanda.
Rio de Janeiran Holanda has recorded more
than 20 albums of mandolin virtuosity. His prowess matches Mike Marshall and Chris Thile, yet
he retains a richness and vibrancy that is unique.
Surrounding himself with musicians drawn from
jazz’s global elite, Holanda makes a case for the
mandolin as a supreme improvising instrument,
recalling, in his hands, the energy and invention
of Django Reinhardt.
Holanda’s dazzling originality is evident in
the solo-mandolin album opener “Naquele
Tempo,” followed by 11 tracks of Pixinguinhainspired majesty. Accordionist Richard Galliano
joins Holanda for a poignant yet still rip-roaring “Agradecendo,” whereas pianist Stefano
Bollani and Holanda circle each other like bull
and bullfighter in the tense but joyful “Canção Da
Odalisca.” The familiar melody of “Um A Zero”
goes by in a flash in a Holanda duet with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Pianist Chucho Valdés
guests on two tracks: “Lamentos” and its opposite, the festive “Benguelê.” The songs bring forth
the sound of two masters in a playpen of their own
design.
World Of Pixinguinha is a study in passion
and contemplation, beauty and splendor, from the
old world to ours.
—Ken Micallef
Marta Sánchez Quintet
Partenika
FRESH SOUND NEW TALENT 470
++++
Michael Oien
And Now
FRESH SOUND NEW TALENT 467
+++½
There’s an intriguing flow throughout Partenika,
pianist Marta Sánchez’s second album as a leader. Like the heartbeat of a city or the pulse of an
ecosystem, Sánchez’s original pieces mesh together into a comprehensive framework.
The native of Spain and current Brooklyn resident was classically trained at her hometown
conservatory before earning her master’s degree
in jazz from NYU. For this disc, she utilized one
of her New York-based working bands, a cohesive unit compiled from international voices.
(Alto saxophonist Román Filiú is from Cuba by
way of Spain; tenor player Jerome Sabbagh hails
from Paris; bassist Sam Anning grew up in Perth,
Australia; and drummer Jason Burger was born
and raised in California.)
“Opening” beings with cymbal washes, arco
bass and Sánchez’s hypnotic piano lines. It’s an
understated display of dramatic catch-and-release, with the bandleader’s fluid keyboarding
acting as a through line. The subsequent “Patella
Dislocation” offers considerably more tension
than relief. Shifting rhythms lay the foundation
for some freer soloing before an extended solo by
Burger.
According to the Ethan Iverson-penned liner
notes, the title track was “influenced by Greek
street music heard near the Parthenon.” One
quickly can imagine tourists and locals populating the historic site, as Sánchez gently prods them
along with her pathos-filled comping.
The journey concludes with the kinetic “El
Paso De Los Años,” which allows each of the band
members to stretch out as a group, leaving the listener at once satisfied and a little breathless.
Also on Fresh Sound New Talent, Michael
Oien’s And Now suggests a certain type of sound:
It gives the impression of an ECM project, or perhaps a reunion of the Metheny/Mehldau Quartet.
Instead, it’s a prelude to a diverse set of pieces that
Oien has written over the years.
The bassist’s debut album begins with delicate
playing from pianist Jamie Reynolds, which is
colored in by deeply felt passages from guitarist Matthew Stevens and subtle brushwork from
drummer Eric Doob. Steadily, Oien’s thoughtfully placed notes emerge. Using an alternative
approach, the bandleader starts off “Skol” unaccompanied, with a sonorous tone and an infectious groove that later propels alto saxophonist
Nick Videen’s sinewy lines. Doob is given a supersized solo in which he glides with flowing tomtom accents.
The three-part “Dreamer” suite is an ambitious contribution to this album. “Part I” could be
interpreted as waking from sleep, with Videen’s
plaintive wailing, Doob’s hazy cymbals and
Stevens’ ghost-like guitar effects in full play. “Part
II” quickly transitions from a freewheeling group
escape to a slower, more carefree romp, and “Part
III” brings everything together with a searching
yet life-affirming strut.
—Yoshi Kato
Partenika: Opening; Patella Dislocation; Partenika; Balada Del
Momento; Yayyy; Andy; Small Game; El Paso De Los Años. (51:54)
Personnel: Marta Sánchez, piano; Jerome Sabbagh, tenor
saxophone; Román Filiú, alto saxophone; Sam Anning, bass; Jason
Burger, drums.
Ordering info: freshsoundrecords.com
And Now: In The Early Autumn; Skol; Mad To Live; Ask Anyone;
Smile This Mile; Dreamer (Part I); Dreamer (Part II); Dreamer (Part III);
All My Trials. (48:54)
Personnel: Michael Oien, bass; Matthew Stevens, acoustic and
electric guitar; Nick Videen, alto saxophone; Jamie Reynolds, piano;
Eric Doob, drums; Travis Laplante, tenor saxophone (3).
Ordering info: freshsoundrecords.com
World Of Pixinguinha: Naquele Tempo; Lamentos; Agradecendo; Canção Da Odalisca; Um A Zero; Ingênuo; Rosa; Seu Lourenço
No Vinho; Benguelê; Yaô; Capricho De Pixinguinha; Carinhoso.
(51:44)
Personnel: Hamilton de Holanda, mandolin; Stefano Bollani (4,
8), Mário Langinha (7), Omar Sosa (10), Chucho Valdés (2, 9), André
Mehmari (11), piano; Richard Galliano, accordion (3, 6); Odette
Ernest Dias, flute (12); Carlos Malta, tenor saxophone (12); Wynton
Marsalis, trumpet (5).
Ordering info: hamiltondeholanda.com
Historical /
BY AARON COHEN
True to the Course
Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra
Blues For Tahrir
HIPNOTIC 10013
+++½
Four years ago, much of the world watched as the
Arab Spring transpired on their television screens.
Clarinetist Todd Marcus was one of those witnesses. Like millions of others, he experienced
roller-coaster emotions, from anger to confusion,
despair to hope.
But Marcus differed from most of his fellow
long-distance viewers. One, he had a personal stake in what was happening, being the son of
an Egyptian father. And two, as a self-taught composer, he could translate the full range of his feelings into music. Blues For Tahrir is Marcus’ reflection on the emergence of a democratic movement
on those fateful days in Cairo.
The instrumentation of the orchestra is
defined largely by Marcus’ embrace of the bass
clarinet. Within the context of the ensemble, his
infatuation with deep sounds moves the center of
his arrangements to a lower than normal range.
With his fondness for interspersing clustered harmonies and open spaces, Marcus portrays the
Tahrir Square uprising mainly in shadows—yet
glimmers of light become visible in the darkness.
We hear it in one of the album’s most compelling moments, “Tears On The Square.” The song
opens with a beautiful unaccompanied passage
by bassist Jeff Reed, who plays with deliberation,
using rubato and artfully applied glissandi to
infer breath, or perhaps sighs of sadness. After a
moment, Irene Jalenti enters with a wordless vocal;
rather than take the spotlight, she integrates into
the mix, adding an extraordinary, heartbreaking
sheen to the instruments—an inspiring touch.
There’s much more to experience on this disc.
Russell Kirk’s blazing alto solo evokes the helter-skelter suggested by the title on “Protest.”
Complex rhythms evaporate into looser, though
not entirely free, improvised sections on the
album's finale. Altogether, Blues For Tahrir is as
contradictory and moving as the pivotal episode
that inspired it.
—Bob Doerschuk
Blues For Tahrir: Many Moons (Intro); Many Moons; Blues For
Tahrir Suite: Adhan; Reflections, Tears On The Square; Protest;
Alien; Wahsouli; Summertime; Bousa. (66:23)
Personnel: Todd Marcus, bass clarinet, percussion (3, 5, 10);
Gregory Tardy, tenor saxophone; Russell Kirk, alto saxophone;
Brent Birckhead, alto saxophone (2, 3, 6, 7, 9), flute (except 3, 6, 9);
Alex Norris, trumpet; Alan Ferber, trombone; Xavier Davis, piano;
Jeff Reed, bass; Eric Kennedy, drums; Jon Seligman, percussion (4,
5, 10); Irene Jalenti, voice (5, 7, 9).
Ordering info: hipnotic.com
From the late 1960s through
the mid-1970s, jazz veterans faced their own set of
challenges. Rock and other
popular idioms had captured the public’s imagination and the new freedom
principle in jazz continued
to expand. Fusion offered
another avenue, but how
many musicians could be
Miles Davis? Still, many older, and younger, jazz musicians thrived just through
being themselves.
By 1970, Duke EllingDuke Ellington
ton and His Orchestra
remained a touring machine and the bandleader kept expanding his
compositional palette. On The Conny Plank
Session (Gronland; 29:26 ++++) the band
runs through three takes each of two songs—“Alerado” and “Afrique”—in producer Conny Plank’s
Cologne, Germany, studio. While those tracks have
been previously released, this disc (and included
visuals) offers a fascinating look into Ellington’s
creative process at the time. On “Alerado,” Wild
Bill Davis’ swirling organ lines sound like a classic
response to the era’s Hammond B-3 trend. On
“Afrique,” the orchestra works in freer harmonies,
with an emphasis on the tom-tom drumming. The
evolving takes illuminate how the group’s tone
shifts as the pieces are developed. Plank himself
would go on to make his own impact on electronic
music through his later years collaborating with
Kraftwerk.
Ordering info: gronland.com
Tony Bennett’s greatest duet partner was
(and will always be) the brilliant pianist Bill Evans, whom he worked with in 1975 and 1976.
They recorded two vocal jazz classics—The Tony
Bennett Bill Evans Album and Together Again—
and blended together so well, they needed no
other accompanists. While these sessions have
been available on CD, The Complete Tony
Bennett Bill Evans Recordings (Concord;
31:00/36:00/41:00/38:00 ++++) presents
them on four audiophile LPs with numerous alternate takes and Will Friedwald’s perceptive liner
notes. Bennett and Evans’ control of musical space
and intuitive rhythmic sense sounds as remarkable
today as it must have 30 years ago. On such standards as “Young And Foolish” and “But Beautiful,”
Evans unfurls unexpected progressions that complement Bennett’s bel canto phrasing, even when
they seem to be working in different harmonies.
And Bennett also dynamically personalizes such
Evans compositions as “Waltz For Debbie.”
Ordering info: concordmusicgroup.com
Wild Bill Davison was a top-flight traditional
cornetist who had been playing since the 1920s,
although his best work was with Eddie Condon
during the ’40s. In 1968, he made the astute decision to simply hire some great like-minded play-
ers and blow through tunes that were their stock
in trade for The Jazz Giants (Sackville 3002;
56:54+++½ ), which was recently reissued with
a couple bonus tracks. Some of the joys are in the
three-way exchange with Davison, clarinetist Herb
Hall and trombonist Benny Morton on such upbeat
tunes as “I Found A New Baby.” But the stunner
here is bassist Arvell Shaw (a Louis Armstrong
alum). His beautiful arco lines that introduce “Yesterdays” blend into all kinds of twists.
Ordering info: delmark.com
Despite Buddy Rich’s reputation as a taskmaster, he should also be recognized for highlighting individual textures within his bands. And
during the late 1970s, he led especially strong
groups, which comprise the live recordings
on Birdland (Lightyear 5365646223; 58:15
+++). Saxophonist Alan Gauvin taped these gigs
and despite his liner notes’ disclaimer about mic
placement, the sound is clear. Rich emphasized the
three-trumpet lead (which he called “Killer Force”),
but this brass-heavy front line opened itself to
sharp saxophone soloists, such as Turk Mauro’s
baritone on “God Bless The Child” and Steve Marcus’ soprano on “Three Day Suckers.” Rich provides
the expected precision, but also surprisingly subtle
brushwork on “Just Friends.” The bandleader tries
to adjust with the times through Tom Warrington’s
electric bass and a straightforward cover of Paul
Simon’s “Keep The Customer Satisfied.”
Ordering info: lightyear.com
While such veterans as these were choosing
new directions—or forming deeper bonds with
their own traditions, Michael and Randy Brecker
represented the generation that was creating its
own path. The Brecker Brothers’ The Bottom
Line Archive (BFD 11; 70:40 +++½ ), was recorded in March 1976 and is the only legit live recording of the original band. Saxophonist Michael
and trumpeter Randy pared down the jazz-rock
fusion of such bands as Tony Williams Lifetime
and emphasized call-and-response funk on “Jungle Walk” and “Keep It Steady.” Along with Steve
Khan’s wah-wah and bassist Bill Lee’s other effects,
DB
everyone’s technique remained formidable.
Ordering info: bottomlinearchive.com
Jared Gold
Metropolitan Rhythm
POSI-TONE 8138
+++
This session from organist Jared Gold netted nine
breezy instrumentals—a little too breezy sometimes.
They slip by from one track to another without ever
demanding much attention, swinging mostly at
medium tempo with lots of room for solos.
Very little has changed for the classic organ
trio setting since it was established: Organists’ feet
still work too hard, and pop tunes always go over
well. Those rules still apply for Gold’s latest effort.
A sprightly take on Paul McCartney’s 45-year-old
rock staple “Maybe I’m Amazed” fulfills that sec-
ond part of the contract. The modest shuffle features guitarist Dave Stryker on melody with solo
duties being traded chorus by chorus.
A downside of the organ trio is the sameness
of tone. Often, the oscillating keyboard vibes are
more comforting than muscular. They easily subdue the ears and rarely offer much in the way of
aggressiveness. On Metropolitan Rhythm, a take
on the lesser-known Monk tune “Let’s Call This”
is a nice foray into dissonance, and features some
unique organ settings.
The pulse quickens on the Gold original
“Homenagem” and Joe Henderson’s “Granted.”
Drummer Kush Abadey is bustling, pushing
the fast tempo with double-time tornadoes. On
“Granted,” Gold lets loose, rising over Stryker’s
staccato accompaniment and at one point battling one-on-one with Abadey before the drummer takes a rumbling solo of his own. This is the
band at its peak, sharing melodic lines and fastpaced ideas.
It is not clear what metropolis these rhythms
come from, but this set is not the chaos of rush
hour in the urban jungle. It’s more reflective of the
softening light on a Sunday afternoon.
—Sean J. O’Connell
Metropolitan Rhythm: Check-In; Maybe I’m Amazed; Let’s Call
This; God Has Smiled On Me; Homenagem; Risco; Granted; In A
Daze; As Is. (47:03)
Personnel: Jared Gold, organ; Dave Stryker, guitar; Kush Abadey,
drums.
Ordering info: posi-tone.com
Randy Brecker/Bobby
Shew/Jan Hasenöhrl
Trumpet Summit Prague: The
Mendoza Arrangements, Live
SUMMIT RECORDS 658
+++½
Despite vigilant photography from Studio Maly
capturing the magnificent orchestra and star soloists in Prague’s Smetana Hall, Summit neglected
to note personnel of St. Blaise’s Big Band or the
Czech National Symphony Orchestra (both under
the direction of Vince Mendoza) in the liner notes
of this disc. Yes, it’s boring to list everyone, but
it’s an obligation! The big band has a hard-working drummer and useful tenor sax and trombone
soloists, but we don’t know who they are.
Also, it would be helpful to know the solo
order of the three featured trumpeters, although
it can be surmised from Thad Jones’ “Three And
One”—the most quixotic Mendoza arrangement
here—that bombastic Buddy Rich alum Bobby
Shew goes first, taking scream lead forays; followed by the more halting swing of Jan Hasenöhrl;
then Randy Brecker, playing more fiercely than
usual but with his same shrewd, buoyant ideas.
Brecker has compositional credits with the
opener “Village Dawn” and “Creature Of
Many Faces” and Hasenöhrl’s website indicates
non-Mendoza arrangements of tunes by Jerry
Goldsmith, Joe La Barbera and Shew were cut
from this somewhat succinct release. Mendoza's
own “Rhumba Alias” (presumably an homage to
the late percussionist “Don” Alias) has Brecker
riding the insistent, eddying rhythms, and Kurt
Weill’s “Lost In The Stars” is a mellow flugelhorn
feature for Shew, opened like a flower by Mendoza,
who adds gentle shades and subtleties before dramatic tidal surges from full orchestra and tympani. The most thrilling cut is Mendoza’s setting of
the much-trodden “Caravan,” which is reprised
as an encore. The booming reverberations of
the big hall only abet the ambition of Mendoza’s
dune-sweeping score.
—Michael Jackson
Trumpet Summit Prague: Village Dawn; Rhumba Alias; Lost
In The Stars; Caravan; Creature Of Many Faces; Three And One;
Caravan. (46:15)
Personnel: Randy Brecker, Bobby Shew, Jan Hasenöhrl, trumpets; Czech National Symphony Orchestra; St. Blaise’s Big Band;
Vince Mendoza, conductor.
Ordering info: summitrecords.com
George Freeman &
Chico Freeman
All In The Family
SOUTHPORT 0143
+++
Family reunions are times to reminisce.
Saxophonist Chico Freeman recalls in the liner
notes to All In The Family an instance in the 1970s
when his guitar-playing uncle George called him
for a gig. The elder Freeman’s broad musicianship
dispelled Chico’s youthful opinions on the hierarchy of musical styles, a lesson that informs the
diversity of the music on this CD.
But when one is making a record, it can be
good to have a dissenter on hand to challenge the
merit of certain ideas. Chico’s decision to define
family broadly—including associates and the
sound of Chicago itself—has resulted in a record
so diverse that many listeners will encounter a
moment when they want to turn it off.
Of course, one can’t blame Chico for wanting
to show off his high-caliber associates, and
this record features many. Bassist Harrison
Bankhead’s contrapuntal responses to Chico’s
bluff tenor phrases are very nearly worth the purchase price alone. And Kirk Brown’s jaunty piano
on “Chico” sets up a commandingly swinging and
lyrically good-natured solo by George, whose tone
and taste are consistently worth savoring.
But regrettable decisions at other turns tarnish the record’s luster. A handful of exotic interludes featuring percussionists Hamid Drake and
Reto Weber, are enjoyable, but frustratingly brief.
One would prefer to hear an entire album showcasing Chico and the percussionists instead.
Pedestrian electric keyboard sounds nearly
derail “Angel Eyes,” and when you hear that same
instrument in tandem with Chico’s over-sweetened soprano on “Five Days In May,” you may feel
like you’ve wandered into the wrong brunch. A
hard-nosed winnowing could have made a better
album out of this session.
—Bill Meyer
All In The Family: Dark Blue; Interlude V-2; Latina Bonita;
Interlude V-6; My Scenery; Interlude V-9; Five Days In May; Vonski;
Interlude V-8; Inner Orchestrations; Percussion Song Two; Chico;
Interlude V-5; What’s In Between; Essence Of Silence; Interlude V-4;
A Distinction Without A Difference; Interlude V-10; Angel Eyes; Percussion Song One; Marko; Chico & George Introductions. (79:00)
Personnel: George Freeman, guitar; Chico Freeman, tenor
and soprano saxophones; Kirk Brown, piano, Kurzweil keyboard;
Harrison Bankhead, acoustic bass and vocal; Hamid Drake, drums,
percussion; Reto Weber, hang, percussion; Mike Allemana, guitar;
Joe Jenkins, drums; Joanie Pallatto, voice (21).
Ordering info: chicagosound.com
Books /
BY KEN MICALLEF
A Grateful Life
Mathias Eick
Midwest
ECM 2410 4708910
+++
Middle America meets Norway via Mathias Eick’s
Midwest. Or is it the other way around? Trumpeter
Eick and his European brethren take their memories of traveling across the United States and turn
them into music both formal and classical in execution. This is road music, cinematic in scope, in
which the rolling hills are easy to imagine and
the sky seems to go on forever. For jazz, the closest comparison might be some of guitarist Pat
Metheny’s odes to Americana, or the landscapes
painted by fellow trumpeters Mark Isham and
countryman Nils Petter Molvaer.
The solos are there, but in a contributory
sense. Violinist Gjermund Larsen provides a
nice counter to Eick’s more recital-like tones. His
phrasing, while at times an echo of the trumpeter’s, carries just the right intonation. It’s easily the
most soulful sound on the album. The rhythm
section plays the classic supportive role, pianist
Jon Balke filling in lines with dreamy chordal patterns, while bassist Mats Eilertsen and drummer
Helge Norbakken offer the necessary punctuation.
With two introductory pieces that float atop a
6/4 meter, Eick’s extended lines suggest a long view
of the open sky. “Lost,” carried along by its simple
4/4 pulse, combines a bit of a country feel with a
definite pop sheen. Not surprisingly, “Fargo” suggests something completely different than the
film of the same name, even as it seems to hint at
it. Eick’s trumpet in its quieter moments sounds
almost like a flute, and the improvising follows the
tune’s contours like a winding road through hill
and dale. The delicate interplay between pianist
and violin that ends the song is fetching.
Midwest echoes those maddeningly endless
prairies and sometimes bleak desert-like panoramas that fill America’s heartland, from the
Dakotas through Kansas and on through Indiana.
But the solemn, gradual flow of “November” ends
this trip where it started, evoking images of a
snowy Norwegian plain at dusk or dawn, reflecting back on a program that couldn’t have been
stamped “Made in America.”
—John Ephland
Midwest: Midwest; Hem; March; At Sea; Dakota; Lost; Fargo;
November. (42:45)
Personnel: Mathias Eick, trumpet; Gjermund Larsen, violin; Jon
Balke, piano; Mats Eilertsen, bass; Helge Norbakken, percussion.
Drummer Bill Kreutzmann is one of the
world’s true rock stars, with accompanying tales
of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll—and more drugs
and more sex—to prove it. While there’s no denying that Kreutzmann led a charmed existence
(what he calls his “Dance with the Divine”), he’s
also no stranger to struggle.
“During the 1960s we were just a bunch of
kids with our own ideas about what you could
do with rock and roll music,” he tells co-author
Benjy Eisen. “During the 1970s, we became the
Grateful Dead. During the 1980s, we became
genuine rock stars. From seed to flower to fruit.”
If you’re a fan of the Dead’s epic rock jams
and 30-year road warrior history, then Deal:
My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams
and Drugs with the Grateful Dead will be
conventional wisdom. If you’re not a fan, the
Grateful Dead’s equally epic drug-taking and
sex-fueled romps may seem at odds with their
legendary jamband innovations. While the
group undoubtedly pioneered a brand of improvisation—which Kreutzmann says charmed
Branford Marsalis yet irritated Ornette Coleman—you can’t separate the band from their
drugs any more than you can separate Jerry
Garcia from his tie-dye attire. That’s not to
criticize Kreutzmann, Garcia and fellow Grateful Dead members Ron “Pigpen” McKernan,
Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh; rather, it
reignites the eternal question: Do drugs fuel or
inhibit creativity?
With no particular regard to the answer,
Kreutzmann reveals how the Grateful Dead made
the leap from mid-1960s performances at San
Francisco “Acid Test” parties (founded by Ken Kesey and fueled by Dead sound engineer and LSD pioneer “Owsley”) to platinum-selling records, world
tours, MTV success, love-ins and fall-outs. Deal is a
rambling 365-page journey that bolts forward on
its own crazy momentum, Kreutzmann detailing
the harrowing and hilarious events that accompanied the band’s rise to fame. But the book leaves
out critical musical insights that would have made
it more than a page-turner of rock ‘n’ roll hijinks.
Kreutzmann does shed light on his and drummer Mickey Hart’s approach to playing odd meters (“We got away from being a blues band and
started being more of an outsider jam band”), and
offers a fine definition of the improvising musician:
“Comprehending the concepts and being able to
play the parts isn’t enough to make you a good
musician. You also have to have that feeling—you
have to get in contact with who you are inside,
somehow, and let it connect to the music and then
the music will connect to the audience. … Forget
everything you know; forget what you learned in
school. Forget yourself.”
Insightful as he may be, Kreutzmann certainly isn’t above revealing a few mischievous
anecdotes. There was the time, for instance, in
1969 when the Grateful Dead appeared on Hugh
Hefner’s Playboy After Dark TV show, and sound
engineer Owsley spiked the show’s “giant coffee
dispenser” with LSD.
“At the end of the night Hugh Hefner tried to
thank Phil [Lesh] and me,” Kreutzmann writes. “He
was really sincere but he was high on acid and it
was hard for him to talk. All he could do was laugh.”
Flash forward and we learn how the Grateful
Dead were the first band to make a live 16-track
recording; how Kreutzmann and a soundman
once enjoyed an orgy with as many girls as could
fit into their hotel room; the time they rode camels
through the desert to a Bedouin musical jam; how
he turned down a sexual encounter with Profumo
Affair participant Christine Keeler; how Harrison
Ford built one of Kreutzmann’s first homes; his
marathon cocaine binge with actor John Belushi;
and, most touching, his abiding love for the late
Jerry Garcia.
Of the band’s ultimate purpose, Kreutzmann
writes, “We wanted the music to take us to a place
of transcendence and elegance,” and there is no
doubt that occurred for the Grateful Dead and its
millions of followers, the “Deadheads.” And it’s really for them that Deal was written, and for whom
it will thrill and inform.
These days, Kreutzmann plays with his band
Billy & The Kids, and enjoys snorkeling and fishing
near his home in Hawaii.
“Locals don’t know me as ‘Bill the Drummer,’” he writes, “they simply know me as ‘Bill’
… a lucky man who had a crazy life back on the
mainland. I spend many days helping out [my
wife] on her organic farm and I jam with friends
and I eat well and I just enjoy the hell out of island life. My island life."
DB
USING
LANGUAGE AS A
COMPOSITIONAL
TOOL
PAGE 82
DAVID BERKMAN
MASTER CLASS
PAGE 78
ETHAN IVERSON
TRANSCRIPTION
PAGE 84
Caili O'Doherty discusses the use of language as a tool
for composing and improvising in her Pro Session article.
SHERVIN LAINEZ
TOOLSHED
NEW DIGITAL
PIANOS & SYNTHS
PAGE 86
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Woodshed
MASTER CLASS
BY DAVID BERKMAN
The Dim7/Major or
Minor 6 Pair Approach
to Jazz Harmony
WHEN YOU READ A HEADLINE LIKE THAT, IT DOESN’T EXACTLY GET
your juices flowing. That’s the problem with writing about harmony—it
sounds kind of dry, a lot of the sentences have numbers in them, and as you
read them your eyes glaze over and you tend to fall into a stupor. This happens to me, too, and I teach a two-semester jazz harmony graduate course
and wrote a book on jazz harmony, so you’d expect me to be at least mildly interested in this topic. But don’t be fooled. The dryness of the language
hides a fascinating and musically liberating pathway. The dim7/6th pair
approach has opened a lot of interesting doors in my playing, and it can do
the same for yours.
Jazz pianists have a long tradition of using diminished 7th and 6th
chords. Barry Harris is probably the pianist/educator most closely associated with this kind of theory, but you can hear elements of this harmonic
approach in many players, among them Hank Jones, Bud Powell, Bill Evans,
Fred Hersch and Keith Jarrett. It’s an approach that can lead to rich traditional jazz sounds or dissonant chords that evoke a modern classical harmonic palette, sometimes both at once. (It’s also an approach that is often
overlooked in jazz schools.) Once you understand the basics of working with
dim7/6th pairs, you can go take this technique in the direction that reflects
your own personal taste.
First, I have to backtrack a bit: The chord theory taught at most jazz
schools is based on building up from the root in stacked thirds. Seventh
chords have a root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th. The appropriate tensions
are usually chosen for a given chord (e.g., 9 or natural 9, 13 or natural 13) so
as to minimize dissonance with the chord tones, avoiding 9 intervals in particular, except in relation to the root of dominant 79 chords.
The result of this “stacked thirds” system is that for each chord I see on a
lead sheet, there is a set of notes (chord tones and tensions) that are available
for me to use to harmonize any particular melody note.
There are a lot of strengths to this system. First of all, it gives us a way of
describing any note in relation to the root (even a weird one that we don’t normally use, like a 9 or a 13 on a major 7th chord.) It also gives us a set of commonly used notes that work on each chord. What this system doesn’t tell us
is how these notes want to move. The note “D” on a Cmin9 is a static sound
that has no inclination to resolve up or down. Of course, we develop a sense
of where these tensions might want to go by working with them, but there’s
nothing written into the theory that tells us anything about this—tensions
are discrete colors that don’t want to do anything in particular except bring
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
David Berkman
that color to the chord voicing.
The big idea with this dim7/6th approach is that there are chord tones (1,
3, 5 and 6) and diminished 7th neighboring chord tones (2, 4, #5 and 7) that
go along with them. The diminished 7th notes want to resolve to the chord
tones much as a suspension does in classical harmony. It’s these eight notes,
not the stacked thirds, that determine the vertical harmony of a chord voicing in this alternative system of dim7/6th pairs.
First of all, you should note that these chords (major 6ths and diminished
7ths) are diatonic to the major bebop scale. A major bebop scale is an eightnote scale—a major scale (ionian mode) with one added note, the #5. See
Example 1.
If I make four-note diatonic chords out of this scale by starting on each
scale degree and then stacking every other note of the scale above the root,
something surprising happens. Starting on the root note and alternating
scale degrees, the first chord is 1, 3, 5 and 6 (not 7, because of the half-step
between 5 and 6), a Cmaj6. Starting on the second degree of the scale, the
second chord is 2, 4, #5 and 7, a Ddim7. The third chord is 3, 5, 6 and 1, or a
Cmaj6, first inversion. The fourth chord is 4, #5, 7 and 2, or an Fdim7 (since
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
Example 11
Example 7
Example 12
Example 8
Example 13
Example 9
Example 14
Example 10
diminished 7th chords located minor thirds apart
are all inversions of each other, we can either call
this chord an Fdim7 or a Ddim7, first inversion).
The important thing to notice is that these fournote diatonic chords are all inversions of the first
two chords. Instead of seven different chords (as I
get when I make diatonic four-note chords out of
most scales), I get only two different chords: the I
major 6th (in C: C, E, G and A) and the ii diminished 7th (in C: D, F, A and B). See Example 2.
OK, so far so good. Let’s make these chords
sound a little more pianistic by taking them out
of root position. I am going to use a voicing called
“drop 2.” To make a drop 2 voicing, start with a
close-position voicing then drop the second voice
of the chord (the alto) down an octave. If I do that
to the close-position voicings in Example 2 and
then arrange these voicings going up the scale, I
get the sequence shown in Example 3.
This is a pretty, traditional sound, alternating
diminished 7th chords and major 6th chords. It
has very nice voice leading with the half-steps that
result from the addition of #5 to the major scale.
(Pianists should learn this progression in all keys.)
Now I’ll play the ascending diatonic chords
again, but this time I’ll play the first major 6th
chord for the three lower voices, and I’ll “borrow”
the top note from the diminished 7th chord that’s
coming next—the next chord up the scale—for
the top note of the voicing. My first voicing will
be (from bottom up) C, G, A and F. While still
holding the bottom three notes of the chord, I’ll
resolve the F to an E, the third that belongs on the
C6 chord. Now I’m ready to play the next chord
moving up the scale. Again, I’m going to play the
bottom three notes of this voicing, in this case,
the D, A and B of the Ddim7 with the top note G
borrowed from the next chord up the scale, the
C6/E. While the bottom voices sustain, the top
note resolves down a step to the F, the note that
belongs on the Ddim7. You can see the pattern
in Example 4. Fortunately, it’s a lot easier to see
at the piano or to read in music notation than to
describe in words.
An interesting thing about borrowing tones
is that this process creates extremely unusual and dissonant voicings before they resolve.
In Example 4 (and this is perhaps the simplest
application of the idea of borrowing tones—
borrowing the top voice from the next chord),
we generate the following chords (before resolution), as shown in Example 5.
I’ve labeled the chords in Example 5, not
because I think you need to memorize these
unusual chord qualities (you don’t), but just to
show how strange these chords are. They are interesting additions to my voicing vocabulary, and of
course that’s not all. I can use any combination of
borrowed notes and chord tones between these
two chords however I wish. Example 6 is a pattern
with the two middle notes borrowed.
The reason borrowing is so important is
because in the dim7/6th system, all of these notes
are available to use when you are playing a Cmaj6
(or Cmaj7, since a Cmaj7 is just a Cmaj6 with one
borrowed diminished 7th note—the B). The last
piece of the puzzle for me in appreciating this system was realizing that we can resolve the bor-
rowed notes back to the C6 chord (as we have
done above) or we can rest on these dissonances, letting the suspension hang there, unresolved.
We’ll return to this idea in a moment, but first we
have to look at the other scale that works with this
dim7/6th system, the melodic minor bebop scale.
This is the same scale as the bebop major scale
except that we flat the 3rd. See Example 7.
This scale generates the same diminished 7th
passing chords, but instead of the inversions of the
Cmaj6 chord we get inversions of a Cmin6 (C–6)
chord. See Example 8. (Pianists should practice
the progression in all keys.)
Now we can revisit our borrowing patterns
using this scale. First, borrow the top note only, as
shown in Example 9.
Now we can try borrowing using the two
internal notes, as in Example 10.
Once again, many interesting combinations
occur with this kind of borrowing. Pianists should
try to come up with their own combinations of
borrowing, again, practicing this in all keys.
As I mentioned above, you have to notice that
the above patterns—that is all of these combinations of borrowed tones—are a way of expressing a Cmaj6 or a Cmin6. If you don’t believe me,
play the above diatonic chords up an octave with a
C pedal in the bass and you’ll hear the back-andforth sound that resolves into a C chord each time.
So all of these notes, the C, E, G and A and the D,
F, A and B are available to use when I see a Cmaj7
(or C6) on a lead sheet.
The end result I am going for is this: Every
chord that I find on a lead sheet can be understood
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Woodshed
MASTER CLASS
BY DAVID BERKMAN
Example 15
Example 16
Example 17
Example 18
as a dim7/6th chord pair. Now my job becomes
being able to convert lead sheet chords into these
dim7/6th chord pairs.
Here are some of the main dim7/6th pair conversions for different chord types. There are certainly possibilities I haven’t considered, but these
are among the most commonly used choices. I’m
going to put everything in C to make things easier, but of course you should learn these in all keys:
• C major possibilities = C6 and Bdim7, G6 and
F#dim7 (over C) and Amin6 and Bdim7 (over C).
• Cmin6 = Cmin6 and Bdim7. This pair harmonizes a i minor sound.
• Cmin7 = E6 and Ddim7 (over C). Minor sevenths are the same as major sixths in third inversion,
so I don’t need to convert these chords back to 6th
chords—by which I mean, when I see a minor 7th, I
think of it and the diminished 7th a half-step below
it, instead of converting this chord to E6.
•
Cmin75 = E min6 and Ddim7 (over C).
Minor seventh 5 chords are the same as minor
sixths in third inversion, so I don’t need to con80 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2015
vert these chords back to 6th chords—by which I
mean, when I see a minor 75 I think of it and the
diminished 7th a half-step below, instead of converting this chord to E min6.
•
Cdim7 = Cdim7 and Bdim7. A diminished
7th chord can’t be understood as a dim7/6th
pair, so this actually is an exception to our rule.
However, we can make a pair for the diminished
7th chord by using a neighboring diminished 7th.
These two diminished 7th chords together make a
diminished 7th scale.
That leaves us dominant 7ths to consider. The
dominant 7th chords are the most complicated,
because we have to provide for all of the different combinations of available tensions. So we really need to look at three different types of dominant 7ths: natural tension dominants, fully altered
dominants and 13 9#9 dominants:
• C9#11 = Gmin6 and F#dim7 (over C).
• C79#9#1113 (C7 altered) = D min6 and
Cdim7 (over C).
• C13 9#9 = B dim7 and Adim7. From C, this
is a half/whole diminished 7th scale.
Wow, that was a mouthful. Let’s get to some
real musical examples so you can see how this
works in action.
Consider the melodic fragment shown in
Example 11. Gmin7 (G–7) is an inversion for B 6,
so I can harmonize this passage using the B 6 and
Adim7 pair (or I can think of the pair as Gmin7
and F#dim7). I can harmonize the melody using
a chord for each note, harmonizing notes that are
from the B 6 group (beats 1 and 2 in the first bar
and beat 3 in the second bar) with B 6 chords and
harmonizing diminished 7th melody notes (beat
3 in the first bar and beat 1 in the second bar) with
diminished 7th chords. In drop 2 voicings that
would sound like Example 12.
I can harmonize songs like this, using no borrowing, with voicings in drop 2 form. It is an
extremely effective traditional voicing technique. However, I can also add borrowing, which
means that I can borrow notes from the B 6 chord
(or Gmin7) when I am harmonizing a note that
comes from the Adim7 (or F#dim7) and borrow
notes from the Adim7 (or F#dim7) to harmonize
notes from the B 6 chord (or Gmin7).
So here are just a few of the options open to me
in harmonizing the above passage using borrowing techniques. Let’s just focus on the first bar
(which is a pickup bar). See Examples 13–16.
I have even more possibilities if I include other
voicing structures than drop 2—see Example 17.
One last example—a major chord with the 5th
in the melody. Many jazz standards begin this
way—“It Could Happen To You,” “Darn That
Dream” and “Here’s That Rainy Day,” to name a
few. Another way to think of the dim7/6th possibilities is as the chord tones of a major 6th plus
the 9, 4, #5 and 7 available as suspensions that can
resolve or not. This is a lot of harmonic richness
that’s unavailable in my stacked thirds system.
Plus, I can tweak my voicings as I play them, letting the dissonance hang or resolving it. Beautiful
counterpoint and inner voice movement often
results from this approach, but even if I don’t
resolve the dissonance at all, the potential for resolution exists and the notes hang in a beautiful
ambiguity. See Example 18.
Good luck with your own explorations. (For a
fuller discussion of the dim7/6th system and additional jazz harmony ideas, see The Jazz Harmony
Book from Sher Music Publishing.)
DB
Pianist/composer/bandleader David Berkman has been an
important part of the jazz scene for more than 30 years.
He has played in numerous bands, including those of Tom
Harrell, Cecil McBee and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and
has performed and/or recorded with jazz luminaries Brian
Blade, Sonny Stitt, Dave Douglas, Dick Oatts and Chris
Potter. Berkman has published three books with Sher Music
Publishing, including last year’s The Jazz Harmony Book, from
which much of the material for this article was drawn. His
latest CD, Old Friends And New Friends, was released in May
2015 on Palmetto Records. Berkman is an associate professor in
the Queens College Jazz M.M. program in New York. For more
information, visit davidberkman.com, shermusic.com and
palmetto-records.com.
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Woodshed
PRO SESSION
BY CAILI O’DOHERTY
Using Language as a Tool for Composing and
Improvising
Caili O’Doherty
related. While it was once a common belief
among anthropologists that music was an evolutionary byproduct of language, today the reverse
opinion is commonly held, that music came
first and language developed later. Regardless
of which developed first, each likely began as an
attempt to imitate different pitches and inflections heard in nature, and later progressed to the
ability to communicate with others and eventually led to to the development of melodies and
harmonies (perhaps influenced by the natural
pitch differences between the speech of children,
women and men).
Speaking a language and making music are
very similar activities. Each has rhythm, phrasing,
expression, pitch and structural rules, and both
strive to communicate something to the listener. However, musicians don’t typically make use
of the connection between the two in any sort of
conscious way. Often when we switch into “music”
mode, we begin to think only in the language of
music. But if we leave the door open and use language as a tool to help us compose and improvise
music, we can capitalize on the natural rhythms
and pitches of language and the affinity that people naturally have for spoken language patterns to
help us develop our own unique voices as musicians and make music that can be more appealing
to a wider audience.
Critiques of beginning improvisers often
include comments like, “You’re playing too many
notes,” or, “You need to listen and interact with
the other musicians.” Both of these comments
could be paraphrased as, “You’re not playing like
you speak.” When we speak to each other, we take
pauses to breathe and listen; when we improvise
and compose music—which is just improvisation
out of time—we should do the same.
This is particularly important for pianists,
guitarists and any other musicians who play
instruments that don’t require occasional pauses to take a breath. When I first started composing music, I was focused on developing my musical ideas without much awareness of the need for
any particular phrasing. After performing my earlier pieces with horn players, I realized the melodies I was writing were difficult to play because
they didn’t leave any room to breathe.
As a young jazz musician, much of my music
education involved learning jazz standards. I was
always impressed with the beautiful melodies and
phrasing of these tunes. I don’t remember if someone brought it to my attention or if the idea just
came to me one day, but I later realized that the
appeal of their phrasing stemmed from the fact
that these standards were written with lyrics, and
were meant to be sung. At that point, I began writing lyrics to all of my compositions, regardless of
whether they would ever be sung by a vocalist, and
SHERVIN LAINEZ
MUSIC AND LANGUAGE ARE CLOSELY
Example 1
it improved my phrasing significantly.
Jazz musicians often ask themselves, “How do
I develop my own voice as an improviser and composer?” First and foremost, it’s very important to
study the jazz tradition—to listen, transcribe and
imitate other jazz musicians. Listening and imitation are the same steps we use to acquire spoken
language. However, if all we do is imitate and play
licks copied from other musicians, we won’t be
able to develop our own unique voices as artists.
There are many techniques for helping musicians
make the transition into composing and improvising. One technique that I have found very useful is
to use language patterns as a basis for creating music.
This goes beyond simply writing lyrics to the music.
The idea is to use different language patterns to help
you create the original rhythms, accents, phrasing and pitches of the music. The language is not an
afterthought; the words come first.
While attending Berklee College of Music, I
had the privilege to study with Danilo Pérez in the
Berklee Global Jazz Institute. He introduced me to
Example 2
Example 4a
Example 3a
Example 4b
Example 3b
Example 4c
Example 3c
Example 5
new ways of applying this concept to my improvisation, and many of the ideas and exercises in this
article originated from him. The following exercises are intended to help us grow as improvisers
and composers by imitating the natural rhythms
and pitches of language. This is also a productive practice for beginning improvisers who don’t
know where to begin and might feel overwhelmed
by the thought of improvising.
Composing Music
Try writing lyrics first. Then sit down with
your preferred writing instrument—piano, guitar,
horn or whatever works best for you. Speak or sing
the lyrics out loud and try to match the pitches
of your voice to form the melody on your instrument. Now try it the opposite way and compose
a melody first and try to write lyrics to the melody afterwards. Note: It’s important to speak as you
normally would, with pauses to give the music
room to breathe.
Practicing By Yourself
Try reading a book or magazine aloud and
attempt to play the words on your instrument.
Start by reading a short passage, and then try to
imitate the inflections in your voice from the way
you read the passage to how you play it on your
instrument. (See Example 1.) This will take some
practice to feel comfortable. Focus on imitating
your vocal attack and the way you raise and lower
accents when you speak. For instance, when you
ask a question, you raise the pitch of your voice at
the end of the phrase.
Another exercise is to transcribe people
talking. Choose excerpts from television shows,
movies, comedy shows, recorded live poetry,
famous speeches or any other source of inspiring
speech or dialogue. Work on phrasing your mel-
odies to imitate each speaker you transcribe and
notice how everyone speaks differently. Your lines
will be varied and unique.
Practicing With Another Musician
Have a conversation with another person, and
each of you try to play what you say. First, do this
away from your instruments. Walk in a circle
stepping to quarter notes and talk to each other
about your day. Then scat what you say, without
words. When this feels comfortable, instead of
talking, just scat what you are trying to say. See if
you can understand each other.
Then do the same thing using your instrument, while walking quarter notes in place. If you
play a non-wind instrument like piano or guitar,
you can talk about your day and try to play what
you are saying at the same time. Try to match your
instrument’s notes to the pitches of your voice and
not the other way around. Don’t adapt the way you
speak to what you play on the instrument. If you
find this difficult, record your voice and then listen to the recording to identify your vocal pitches. Also, every language has a different natural
rhythm to it, so when you do this exercise, speak
in your native language. (See Example 2.)
Rhythm Challenge
Now for a challenge. Go back to scatting without playing your instrument, talking about your
day, but add in clapping different parts of the
triplet while walking quarter notes in a circle.
Clap the first part of the triplet, i.e. “DO”-da-la
(see Example 3a). Next, clap the second part of
the triplet, i.e. do-“DA”-la (Example 3b). Lastly,
clap the third part of the triplet, i.e. do-da-“LA”
(Example 3c).
Once you have those triplet rhythms down,
try switching to some traditional comping
rhythms. First, try the “Charleston” rhythm, i.e.
1 and the “and” of 2 (see Example 4a). Then try
the 1 and the “and” of 3 (Example 4b). Lastly, try
the “and” of 2 and the “and” of 4 (Example 4c).
If you’re up for even more of a challenge, do this
while clapping the bembe rhythm (Example 5).
For rhythm section players, when this feels
comfortable, instead of clapping the rhythms, try
comping them on your instrument while talking
about your day. Horn players can also try doing
this on the drums or piano. These are also great
exercises to work on improving your time feel.
It’s important to mention that this is just one
approach to improvising and composing, and it
deals mainly with creating melodies and rhythms.
You are still left with the task of creating harmonic structure. To create a captivating solo or composition, it’s important to create tension and resolution, which can be formed through the melody and
rhythm, but would be strengthened by developing
complex harmony and longer lines. Conversation
tends to consist of relatively short sentences, so using
conversation alone as a source of improvisational ideas can tend to create short lines. However, the
technique can be useful to help get you out of a rut
of playing similar lines all the time. Of course, the
melodic lines you create with this technique can be
arbitrarily long depending on the language source
you use. I encourage you to try out these techniques
and see if they work for you.
DB
Pianist Caili O’Doherty lives in Harlem, New York. She recently
released her debut album, Padme (ODO Records), which
features violinist Alex Hargreaves, saxophonists Caroline Davis
and Ben Flocks, trombonist Eric Miller, bassist Zach Brown,
drummer Cory Cox and special guests Mike Bono on guitar
and Adam Cruz on drums. O’Doherty currently teaches private
lessons in New York and works at Jazz at Lincoln Center as a
piano accompanist. She endorses Nord keyboards and Mono
cases. Contact her at [email protected] or visit her
website at cailimusic.com.
Woodshed
SOLO
BY JIMI DURSO
STEVEN SUSSMAN
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Ethan Iverson
Ethan Iverson’s Idiosyncratic
Piano Solo on ‘Cheney Piñata’
THE BAD PLUS ISN’T A TYPICAL PIANO
trio, and Ethan Iverson isn’t a typical pianist.
His tune “Cheney Piñata,” a plucky Latin 6/8
tune (though Iverson says he hears it as a fast 3/4)
from the 2004 album Give (Sony), is one of the more
conventional items in the band’s repertoire. But in
Iverson’s improvised solo, there exists much of the
quirkiness that is often associated with the group.
The first thing I notice about this solo is
Iverson’s left hand. It’s used very sparsely, and
mostly on strong beats. Though this is something
that’s been considered un-hip since the days of
bebop, there is a history of this in earlier jazz, as
well as stride piano and ragtime styles. Also, the
note choices are generally single or double notes
that are strong parts of the chord, mostly root3rd or root-5th. This also is an antiquated sound.
Modern jazz pianists favor rootless voicings, leaving the job of providing the tonic to the bassist.
Here, Iverson sets himself apart not by trying to
do something more modern, but by bringing up
something old in a new context.
But he’s not beyond adding a new twist to this
old staple. At measure 25, Iverson starts playing
octaves in his left hand, but not always on roots.
He keeps the B going under the E chord, which
is the 5h of the chord, so it makes it sound inverted. But in the next bar, he moves up in half-steps.
The B natural under the F chord is a very “out”
tone, but provides a resolution when he brings it
up to the C, giving us another chord over its 5th.
Then he drops down to the 3rd, keeping the chord
inverted, but stays on this note (A natural) as the
chord resolves to B . Putting a chord over its major
7th in this manner carries a lot of tension, with a
strong pull to resolve upward to the root. Instead,
Iverson drops down a half-step, making the B into a dominant chord. In this key, this serves as
the V of IV, and the flat-7 in his left hand resolves
quite nicely to the 3rd of the E , so those half-steps
now make total sense. When the chord goes back
to B in the next bar, Iverson continues his halfstep descent, and we have a G under the B chord.
This is also a very “out” note, with a pull to resolve
down to the 5th, which Iverson does, creating
another B /F-sounding chord. This very nicely
moves to the F in the next measure. Once again,
all this counterpoint makes aural sense.
Switching over to the right hand, which for
the most part carries the melody of this solo, there
are also some atypical characteristics. One thing
that jumps out is the amount of range Iverson’s
right hand covers. From dipping down into the bass
clef in bars 11–13 and 20, to ascending all the way
up to the ultra-high B ’s and C’s he starts to favor
in measures 27–31, he covers a range of over 3 1/2
octaves. Also, his approach to this extended range
is enlightening. He starts in the middle range,
where many solos typically take place. Then his
range expands slowly, moving into the lower
octaves in the aforementioned bars 11–13, then
insinuating the upper area in bars 16–17. Over the
next three measures, he brings us back into the
bass clef, and then abruptly jumps back up to what
had been the high territory, but from here works
his way up to the extreme end of the piano. Upon
arriving there, Iverson then starts playing sweeping arpeggios that span a large part of the piano’s upper register. Bar 30 is an extreme example,
jumping form a low E up to a high B and then up
to a higher B . Notice how in the next bar his left
hand’s range has also expanded, encroaching into
the treble clef.
Iverson’s note and scale choices also serve to
develop the improvisation. For his first six bars, he
sticks to material diatonic to B major, mostly in
scalar form. Staying “inside” like this also harkens
back to older styles. In the next four measures, he
introduces some chromaticism, but only as lower-neighbor notes and passing tones (nothing all
that “out”).
Bars 11 and 12 are the first place where we get
an “outside” pitch: the F# on the B chord, implying B augmented. If this was done on the V
chord, it would be borrowing from the minor key,
but since it’s on the I chord it’s extra “out.” (Also
observe that the point at which he introduces this
outside pitch is also the point at which he opens
the range downward, both elements together creating a strong change in the texture of the solo).
Measure 16 is where we start to hear some
bebop-style chromaticism. It’s also the spot at
which Iverson expands the boundaries upward,
once again using multiple musical elements to create a greater sense of motion in the solo. This form
of chromaticism continues up to bar 25, where
he goes back to diatonic passages while simultaneously altering his approach to large arpeggios.
This is also where the chromatics begin in the left
hand, so here Iverson is not just bringing the tonal
material back to the start, but also creating a juxtaposition between the “insideness” of the high
part against the “outsideness” of the low part.
Iverson’s use of these musical elements, particularly the way he plays them off against one
another, makes for a very intense and idiosyncratDB
ic improvisation.
Jimi Durso is a guitarist and bassist based in the New York area.
Visit him online at jimidurso.com.
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Toolshed
Akai Advance
Virtual Synth Control
W
ith more and more keyboard players turning to their computers
as a source of sound generation, the controller market has become
a constantly changing landscape as manufacturers try to figure
out how best to present the greatest amount of control—taking into account
the nearly unlimited variations presented by the virtual synth market.
Akai has released its Advance series of controllers as a possible answer.
These are part of a new breed of controllers that offer intuitive real-time controls that morph with the virtual instrument you are controlling and don’t
require you to look at your screen while adjusting parameters.
Such a controller requires two components to succeed: the physical controller (hardware) and the software interface (called “VIP” by Akai).
Let’s start by looking at the hardware. The Advance controllers come in
25-, 49- and 61-key sizes; I had the 49-key version for this review.
The case is solidly built, and feels substantial. It also has visual appeal—
techie and sleek. The front panel has rubberized pitch and mod wheels, eight
MPC-style pads with LED lights, eight large knobs, a smaller click-select
type knob, transport controls and an array of buttons of various functionality. All of the controls feel solid and responsive, and the large knobs are easy
to grab, with enough resistance to do precise adjustments on the fly.
The Advance features a 4.3-inch high-resolution screen that looks amazing. Bright, clear and extremely readable, it will immediately become the centerpiece of your programming once you start working with
it. This becomes important when you
are working with the
VIP software,
too, because you
can access not
only the controller menus, but
full virtual synth
parameters without needing to look
at your laptop at all in
most cases.
The keybed is nice and
smooth, and features aftertouch. It’s a little stiffer than
most other semi-weighted actions
I have tried, but once you get used to
it, it feels very playable. The Advance
keyboards are USB-powered; they also
have a power jack for use as a standalone
controller. The rear panel features MIDI
in and out, and sustain and expression pedal
jacks. I prefer more pedal options on a controller, but this should be enough for most.
The real meat of the Advance comes in its software
package. The VIP software is a hefty download—about
6 gigabytes—and the install took a few tries for me before
it worked properly (Mac users, repair your permissions!), but
once it was installed, it worked flawlessly. Akai has partnered with
AIR to include a nice library of instruments and sounds with the
Advance, including Hybrid 3, Eighty Eight Ensemble, Loom, Xpand!2,
Velvet and Transfuser. These are all full versions, and are excellent products in their own right—bravo to Akai for adding this much value.
VIP starts off by scanning your system for all of your VST instruments.
The VIP software will only recognize VST, not AU or AAX, although it can
run as any of those standards inside another host. This scan can take a while
if you have a lot installed, but it is well worth the wait. Once it finished, it built
a full library of all of my VST patches, fully searchable within the VIP interface—and consequently onboard the Advance itself.
VIP reads the standard tagging that most VST manufacturers use to help
categorize and define the database of sounds, and once you’re there, you can
search sounds regardless of the instrument and load them right there. Most
amazingly, this does not seem to add any discernible overhead to the VSTs
themselves. In fact, the load time for most of them was markedly quicker
than I have experienced in other hosts —some kind of caching magic at work
here. At any time, you can click into the interface of any of the VSTs, so it’s
no problem to edit directly.
Meanwhile, over on the Advance keyboard, you can access all of these
patches, instruments and searches right from the front panel—no more
turning back to the laptop to tweak a sound. Akai has created maps for
the most popular VSTs already, so the controls are set up as you dial
up sounds. There are four bank buttons that allow you to go 32 deep in
parameters on the knobs and pads, and all these assignments are editable
right from the Advance.
This is a
wel l-designed
system, and Akai
has already been talking
up the enhancements and
updates it intends to introduce in
the coming months. The Akai Advance
is an exciting development for virtual synth
players, and goes a long way toward making
them feel more like hardware. The cataloging that the
VIP software does is also a welcome addition: no more
opening up six different VSTs just to try and compare the
“warm pad” sounds—now they all live in the same interface. There
are competitors for this developing category, most notably the Native
Instruments Komplete Kontrol, and this means development here should
be fast and furious. Akai has made a very strong start with the Advance
line, and is well worth a look.
—Chris Neville
Ordering info: akaipro.com
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Toolshed
Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2
Flagship Synth Gets Major Upgrade
W
hen Omnisphere was released back in 2008, it blew away the virtual
instrument community with its depth of features, programmability and amazing sound. It was an indirect outgrowth of Atmosphere,
but moved from a hybrid sample player with some sound sculpting tools to a
really unique synthesizer all its own, based on Spectrasonics’ STEAM engine
synthesis. It immediately became a staple of my arsenal.
Since then, Spectrasonics has done one large update (1.5), free to its users—
this included several new features, and the introduction of The Orb, a new type
of circular performance controller that
can also be controlled by an iPad app
in real time—but has otherwise stuck
to occasional maintenance releases as
needed. That is a long time to go without a major update, and it is a testament
to the quality of this synth that version
1.x was still a dominant player for any
virtual sound designer.
Enter Omnisphere 2, a truly sweeping upgrade. Spectrasonics has gone
under the hood and tweaked just about
every area of the synth, adding many of
the most requested features and enhancing the features that were there to a huge
degree. It’s clear that Eric Persing and
his team have not been sitting idly by
these last several years. I will be focusing on the new features of Omnisphere
2 in this review.
This is a major upgrade that entails
some time to install and download. The
upgrade is a 20-gigabyte download, and
the full version takes up eight DVDROMs. You will need 64 gigs of drive
space when all is done, and you’ll want
your computer to be pretty powerful.
This upgrade does require more horsepower than the original. Thankfully,
this is an “in place” upgrade, meaning
that it takes the place of your current
Omnisphere installation and is fully backwards-compatible, so you won’t have
to worry about losing your user patches or having to keep both versions running to support your current sessions and setups.
The first thing you’ll notice is an overhaul of the user interface. Omni 2 has
a wider screen footprint and always includes a “mini-browser” in a side pane,
which makes browsing patches much easier. This expands into a full browser that allows for extensive search and cataloging options—a must, as the new
version adds in 4,500 new patches and sound sources, bringing the total to
more than 12,000 sounds. Spectrasonics has also re-worked the way you access
the layers within a patch and the FX and Multi layers—much more intuitive.
Another welcome feature in the new browser is called “Sound Lock.” Using
this, you can lock down a variety of aspects of a given sound and browse
through other patches maintaining these traits. So, if you really like the FX
chain or arpeggiator in a certain patch but want a different underlying timbre, you can do so instantly—and this applies to a wide variety of settings. This
makes unique patch creation a breeze.
Spectrasonics has also expanded the synthesis engine, including 400 new
waveforms and wavetable synthesis for every waveform. They have also integrated a new granular synthesis algorithm that lets you do some truly inter-
esting things to your sounds. This is a subset of granular features that might be
found in a synth like Reaktor, but still very powerful, and to my mind, more
musical in its implementation. Perhaps the most requested feature that has now
found its way into Omni 2 is import of user audio. Now, don’t start mapping
out multisamples just yet. This is not a sampler; it is a synth, and user multisamples are not supported. It does allow you to bring in any source of your
choice, though, and this can be particularly satisfying when using the granular engine. Other enhancements include new filter types (to add to the already
ridiculous variety available), better ring
mod and FM capability, and one-touch
reversing of sound sources. The modulation matrix also gets an upgrade, and
the new interface really helps when diving in deep here. You can modulate
almost any source from any target—this
is one of Omnisphere 2’s real strengths.
The expressivity you can achieve is
rivaled only by a few of the very best virtual synths, and none of the others offers
nearly the level of tweakability found
here. You can now implement polyphonic LFOs and mod envelopes, too.
Omnisphere’s arpeggiator was
already one of the more powerful on the
market, and I have always preferred its
interface to most. But in Omni 2, you
can even set up note transpositions to
create step sequences—very cool. The
new Speed Offset control also allows for
some interesting speed options while
not remaining locked to tempo.
The FX engine has undergone a
massive overhaul, too: 25 new FX Units,
spanning multiple types, have been
introduced. The new amp simulators
sound great, and the stomp box modeler is a blast to play with. There is a new
set of “Analog” modulation FX, including phaser, flanger, chorus and vibrato,
and my favorite, the Solina Ensemble, which just melts in your mouth. The new
Precision Compressor is very good-sounding, too, and deserves a mention.
In addition to the FX racks on each layer and common to both, there is now
an Aux FX rack assigned to each patch. And, of course, there are FX sends available from the multi page. This means there are now 16 FX units available per patch,
which allows for a whole different level of synth programming without having to
go in and adjust your filters or mod routings. You can send any FX unit parameter
through the modulation matrix, too.
The new features might make Omnisphere 2 seem a little overwhelming in its
capabilities, but the new interface makes it easy to navigate, and even new users
should be up and running in no time. The included sound library is fantastic, full of
useable sounds in most genres, but the real strength of this synth is programmability. I have relied on Omni for years to recreate sounds from many eras and to design
striking original sounds of my own. Omnisphere 2 gives us an amazing new palette to use and powerful tools to sculpt with. This synth is a must-have for any virtual synthesist. The upgrade for current users is $249 ($199 if you own Stylus RMX
and Trilian), and the full package is $499—well worth it for one of the few virtual
synthesizers that can truly be called a classic.
—Chris Neville
Ordering info: spectrasonics.net
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Toolshed
Kawai CA97
Acoustic Immersion in a Digital Hybrid
W
ith new samples of high-end grand pianos, the latest in Harmonic
Imaging XL technology and flawless keyboard mechanics, the
Kawai CA97 Digital Hybrid Piano captures the essence of playing
an exquisite acoustic instrument. Designed for the piano purist, it’s one of the
most authentic-sounding and realistic-feeling digital pianos available today.
The centerpiece of this instrument is the sound of the ultra-premium
Shigeru Kawai SK-EX concert grand. Channeled through Kawai’s Soundboard
Speaker System—which involves a real spruce soundboard and ribs—the
SK-EX samples resonated with sparkling clarity and thundering power that
I could feel in my feet (and seat). Overtones rang out with such natural resonance, it felt as if I was playing the world’s finest concert hall grand piano.
Playing the CA97’s samples of Kawai’s EX concert grand and SK-5 studio
grand was a similarly striking experience in realism and empowerment.
Strong onboard reverbs added significant depth to these sounds—from a
huge grand cathedral down to a small practice room. Players can use the
CA97’s advanced Virtual Technician to tweak the instrument’s touch, voicing,
hammer and key-release noises, as well as string, lid and damper resonance.
The CA97 also has a nice selection of jazz, upright, and modern and pop
piano variations. Other useful sounds include electric pianos, drawbar and
church organs, strings, harpsichords, choirs and synth pads.
More than just a source of great piano and keyboard sounds, the moving
parts of the CA97 made my play-testing session eye-opening and inspiring. It
has the longest keys of any digital piano, and they’re weighted and balanced to
rise and fall in a seesaw motion just like the real thing. This allows for the player to employ many of the subtle expressive nuances that are called for in serious
acoustic piano repertoire. The keys are finished off with finely textured ivoryand ebony-like surfaces that absorb moisture and assist playing control.
The CA97’s Grand Pedal Feel System added to the realism of my playing
experience. It accurately replicates the damper, una corda and sostenuto pedals
of Kawai’s SK-EX and EX concert grand pianos.
USB connectors allow the CA97 to link to a computer for MIDI use, and
data can be loaded and saved directly to USB memory devices. It also has the
ability to play and record WAV and MP3 files directly via USB audio.
With a suggested retail price of $5,999, the CA97 offers an extremely
detailed acoustic piano portrait, with smooth tonal transitions across the
instrument and throughout the entire dynamic range.
Thanks to Cordogan’s Pianoland in Geneva, Illinois, for allowing
DownBeat to play-test the CA97 in its retail showroom.
—Ed Enright
Ordering info: kawaius.com
Casio Privia PX-860
Smart Choice for the Practical Pianist
I
f the Kawai CA97 hybrid is the Rolls Royce of digital pianos, then Casio’s
Privia PX-860 is the Honda Civic: a reliable and modest performer that
amounts to a smart choice for the economically minded pianist.
With an ultra-affordable retail price of $1,499.99, the PX-860 brings a
number of new features to the already established Privia line of digital pianos. One of the most inviting is a hall-simulator function that places the player
in one of four distinct sonic environments based on acoustic measurements taken at world-famous
performance
locations—the
Dutch Reformed Church,
Berlin Hall Philharmonic
and the French Cathedral
in Berlin, plus a fourth setting called Standard Hall.
During a recent test-drive
at Cordogan’s Pianoland in
Geneva, Illinois, I found that
these preset effects make the
most sense when playing
Casio’s beautiful grand piano
samples (concert, modern,
classic, mellow, bright) or organ
patches (pipe organ, jazz organ,
electric organ 1, electric organ 2).
The reason the PX-860’s pianos sound so good is because the instrument is
equipped with what Casio calls “AiR Technology,” which brings out little
details like damper resonance and hammer speeds and makes tonal nuances
sound much more genuine.
New string ensemble tones were developed for this line of Privia digitals
(which also includes the PX-760 model). They sounded realistic and lush when
played individually, but their true beauty emerged when I layered them with
the onboard piano sounds. There are also new electric piano sounds derived
from Casio’s Privia PX-5S stage piano that you will want to use when the music
calls for a Rhodes, Wurli or DX-7.
The PX-860 has a couple of “bonus” features for an instrument in this price
range. A user-friendly “virtual technician” section lets the player adjust hammer response, string resonance and lid simulation to their liking. The threeway pedal system adds a nice touch for those pianists who want to employ una
corda and sostenuto techniques.
I loved the keys of the PX-860. They have a great feel and sufficient bounce
(without any noticeable “clunk”), and I didn’t experience finger or wrist fatigue.
Plus, they’re textured so they don’t feel slippery to the touch—a problem with
some digital pianos, especially when fingers and hands start to sweat.
The Privia PX-860 is a sturdy competitor that’s sure to appeal to players
who need a great-sounding, practical solution at a more than reasonable price.
—Ed Enright
Ordering info: casiomusicgear.com
th
80 ANNUAL
READERS
POLL
LAST
CALL!
Go to downbeat.com for details!
KEYBOARD SCHOOL
Toolshed
4
GEAR BOX
1. Upper-structure Explorations
Berklee Jazz Keyboard Harmony–2nd Edition
(Berklee Press) by pianist Suzanna Sifter will help
you play with a contemporary jazz sound, interpret
lead sheets and use upper-structure triads to expand your comping palette. By considering tensions
in terms of upper-structure triads, players will develop an organized and intuitive means of using more
advanced structures in their playing. Practical exercises and concise descriptions will help you develop
sight-comping and create full and colorful voicings
for all chord types. The accompanying online audio
files let you hear and practice these techniques
with a jazz quartet. More info: berkleepress.com
2. A Grander Grand
1
Yamaha’ GC1TA grand piano is equipped with
TransAcoustic technology that’s capable of creating
the sound of a 9-foot concert grand piano in
a 5-foot, 3-inch baby grand. The GC1TA is a
hybrid-type acoustic-digital instrument that
incorporates electro-acoustic transducers that
cause the soundboard to vibrate in much
the same way a speaker cone would—allowing for a unique and highly resonant
combination of real acoustic sound and
volume-controllable digital samples of
pianos, electric pianos, pipe organs, harpsichords and other instruments. The piano
can also be played through headphones in
digital-only mode for “silent” performance/
practice. More info: usa.yamaha.com
6
3. Dual-hinged Case
The new K-49 hybrid-design case from Mono
is compact, light and rigid. A dual hinge
design allows for top-loading quick access or
traditional horizontal opening. The case has
a water-resistant shell and a deep external
pocket that can house pedals, cables and
a laptop. More info: monocreators.com
2
4. Rhodes Warriors
Down The Rhodes: The Fender Rhodes
Story (Hal Leonard) is a historical tribute to the
electric piano that revolutionized the sound of
music. Through interviews with a cast of prominent artists—including George Duke, Chick Corea,
Robert Glasper, Donald Fagen, Bob James, Dave
Grusin, Quincy Jones, Joe Sample and others—authors Gerald McCauley and Benjamin Bove provide a
glimpse into how this instrument played an integral
role in the creation of some of the most memorable
music from the 1960s through today. Many of the
artist interviews appear on the included Blu-ray disc.
5
More info: halleonardbooks.com
5. Birds of Play
Hohner has added the Black Hawk I and White
Hawk II accordions to its Anacleto collection. The
BH-1 (pictured) and WH-II have a tactile feel and
fingerboard response, with button action that’s
unique to the Anacleto line. Both models feature a grille that allows for louder projection and
diffusion of sound. More info: playhohner.com
6. Advanced Digital Piano
Korg’s new Havian 30 is designed for musicians
seeking a stylish digital piano complete with
advanced arranger functionality. Havian 30’s
RX (Real Experience) sound engine contains
more than 950 expressive sounds, in addition
to 420 dynamic styles, offering players a variety of fully orchestrated musical performances
to play along with. More info: korg.com
3
School Notes
Jazz On Campus
Bill Charlap (left) performs
with Tony Bennett.
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA–LINCOLN
TERRI-LYNN PELLEGRI
UNL Jazz Orchestra 2.0 performs its fall concert at Kimball
Hall on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus on Dec. 10.
University of Nebraska–
Lincoln Fosters Mentorship
LOOKING BACK OVER THE EVOLUTION OF
the jazz studies program he directs at the
University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL), Paul
Haar recalls a turning point that came courtesy
of vibraphonist Stefon Harris.
“Within the Glenn Korff School of Music, we
had been discussing what we should do with our
jazz program to compete,” said Haar, a Nebraska
native. “What were the other programs doing that
we should do? Stefon was here leading a master
class and he really set us back on our heels by saying, ‘Why not concentrate on what you’re doing
that’s different?’ The jazz program at UNL had a
very mixed past; it had faltered a couple of times.
Stefon’s comments really opened our eyes to how
we might be able to move forward.”
Over the past decade, the school has differentiated itself by focusing on graduate courses, offering
master’s and doctoral degrees in jazz studies (master
of music and doctor of musical arts). At the undergraduate level, bachelor of music and bachelor of arts
in music degrees are offered. But, although the university does not offer a specific jazz undergraduate
degree, it encourages extensive interaction between
its dozen or so graduate jazz students and undergrads in the broader music program.
“It’s a bit like a laboratory,” said Associate
Professor Hans Sturm, a bassist who leads the Korff
School’s strings area. “We like the cross-fertilization
and really believe that mentorship is essential.”
The primary place where that interaction
occurs is within the program’s two ensembles and
eight combos. While undergrads are encouraged
to compose a solo in the style of one musical genre,
the graduate students might then illustrate how a
specific musician who epitomizes the genre would
typically voice the solo.
“The graduates serve as coaches,” said Sturm,
noting that this approach is effective in demonstrating the breadth of jazz studies. “Undergrads
at UNL have typically been the best players in
any situation they’ve encountered at the high
school level. What comes with one-to-one men94 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2015
torship is an expansion of horizons. To younger students who might be familiar with the better-known composers and bandleaders in jazz, we
want to say, ‘Yes, but have you checked out Henry
Threadgill?’”
Grads and undergrads also work closely in
preparing and presenting four concerts each
year—a kickoff performance, one with a historical focus, one featuring student compositions and
one highlighting a guest artist. The guests, who
also teach master classes, have included Ingrid
Jensen, Poncho Sanchez and Ray Anderson.
The ability to work closely with undergrads is
one of the things Haar looks for when evaluating
applicants to the jazz studies program. Most of the
doctoral students are looking to make the transition to teaching at the post-secondary level, while
a number of those who apply to the master’s program seek to advance their careers as performers.
Haar said his goal is to equip the next generation of jazz teachers with an understanding of
current technologies and prepare them to teach a
wide variety of courses. Students are required to
create a portfolio of resource materials with the
aim of designing a comprehensive jazz program at
either the high school or collegiate level.
Haar said future plans include the creation of
a third jazz ensemble and the development of a
final document that graduating students would
leave with, combining a UNL-produced recording of the student’s original compositions and a
collection of the student’s scholarly writing.
“I was a tenured professor at Ball State, where
I’d been for 17 years, when I heard about this
job,” Sturm said. “What made me want to move
to Lincoln and start my career over again? It was
the mentorship and personal attention that this
program embodies. There is so much one-on-one
interaction here—between the faculty and jazz
studies students, and between them and the music
undergrads. Learning about jazz is a long path,
and this program really encourages exploration.”
—James Hale
Paterson Taps Charlap: Pianist Bill Charlap has
been appointed director of the Jazz Studies Program at William Paterson University in Wayne,
N.J. Charlap, who will join the university faculty
on Sept. 1, becomes the fifth world-renowned
musician to lead the program. Founded in 1973,
the program has been directed by trumpeter and
composer/arranger Thad Jones, bassist Rufus
Reid, pianist James Williams and, most recently,
pianist Mulgrew Miller, who died in May 2013.
Charlap will direct six of the program’s 24 small
jazz groups on a weekly basis. He will host the
program’s dialogue days and participate in other
activities and concerts. wpunj.edu
Bass Essentials: Larry Grenadier will conduct a
bass master class at Rockwood Music Hall in New
York City at 1 p.m. on Sept. 26. During the threehour workshop, which costs $150 per student,
Grenadier will focus on aspects of jazz bass playing that he has found essential during his career,
including bass line construction, soloing, practice
ideas, rhythm section concepts, sound and overall technique. Space is limited, and students are
encouraged to bring their instruments.
ticketfly.com/event/904201
New IJS Leadership: Rutgers University–Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor has appointed
Wayne Winborne as executive director of the
Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS), the world’s largest
and most comprehensive jazz archive. Vincent
Pelote has been named the institute’s director of
operations. Following the retirement of longtime
director and former DownBeat editor Dan
Morgenstern, the IJS leadership was restructured
to transform the position into the two newly
created posts. rutgers.edu
Preservation Ball: The Preservation Hall
Foundation will hold its second annual fundraiser
ball at the Civic Theatre in New Orleans on Oct.
3, with an expansion event to take place at the
Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on Nov. 6.
Confirmed collaborators with the Preservation
Hall Jazz Band for the concerts include Meshell
Ndegeocello, Corey Glover, Deacon John Moore,
Pinettes Brass Band and Beats Antique. Proceeds
will benefit The Preservation Hall Foundation,
whose education programs serve underprivileged children in the greater New Orleans area.
preshallfoundation.org
DB Music Shop
ALBUMS & VIDEOS
For Rates: call (630) 941-2030. All ads are prepaid, no agency commission. Check, Money Order, Visa and
MasterCard are accepted. Deadline: Ad copy and full payment must arrive 2 months prior to DB cover date.
Send your advertisement by MAIL: DownBeat Classifieds, Att. Pete Fenech, 102 N. Haven Road, Elmhurst,
Illinois, 60126, EMAIL: [email protected], FAX: (630) 941-3210.
INSTRUMENTS & ACCESSORIES
J O E SA X
Woodwinds
LESSONS
ONLINE JAZZ LESSONS.
Study all styles & aspects of jazz
improvisation and saxophone with
Jeff Harrington, Berklee Professor, MIT
Affiliated Artist, Havard University MLSP
Instructor. www.jeffharrington.com
Email: [email protected].
617-332-0176.
STUDY JAZZ PIANO ONLINE
www.JazzPianoOnline.com
Known worldwide for expert repair
Always a great selection of
used instruments
JAZZ DVD’S / VIDEO
1,300 Concerts, Documentaries, TV,
Instructional. DVDs, Videotapes or,
Laserdiscs. FREE CATALOG: JA Z Z W E S T,
Box 3515 (DB), Ashland, OR 97520
(541) 482-5529 www.jazzwestdvd.com
www.joesax.com
(800) 876-8771
(607) 865-8088
JAMEY AEBERSOLD SUMMER
JAZZ WORKSHOPS
Voted #1 jazz camp by thecelebritycafe.com!
Visit www.summerjazzworkshops.com
for more infomation.
LITERATURE
Fax (607) 865-8010
SERIOUS CD STORAGE
Save space by replacing bulky
jewel boxes with the Jewelsleeve.
Call for a free sample at
1-800-863-3312 or
visit www.jewelsleeve.com
DIG DEEPER —
“Jazz Sketches: Musical
musings on the mother lode”
Order your copy today
Amazon.com
APPLICATIONS
FREE IPHONE/IPAD APP:
The Great American Songbook
VINYL JAZZ AT SET PRICES
Over 30,000 rare, out of print Vinyl JAZZ LPs at set
prices, searchable on our web site. Over 35 years
of international service. Foreign inquiry welcomed.
Also rare jazz publications and literature sold.
Gary Alderman G’s Jazz Inc. P.O. Box 259164
Madison, WI 53725 USA e-mail: [email protected]
www.gjazz.com www.vinyljazz.com
WWW.EASTWINDIMPORT.COM
Japanese import CDs & LPs: Venus,
Marshmallow, Sawano and more!
We ship worldwide.
RARE JAZZ LP AUCTIONS
All instrumental styles plus vocals and
Latin. Free lists sent worldwide. Armand
Lewis, P.O. Box 4834, N. Hollywood,
CA 91617. Fax: 818-762-3563, e-mail:
[email protected]
FIND LIVE JAZZ AND BLUES
ATTENTION JAZZ AND BLUES LOVERS!
Find Live Jazz / Blues Events And News World Wide
Free E-Mail Notice Updates!
Event Producers And Club Owners
We Will Promote Your Dates 24/7
(Via) Text, Photos, Video, E-Mail,
And Social Media
www.livejazzandblues.com
Free Directory Listings for all Musicians and Artists
RPC SAXOPHONE MOUTHPIECES
Old School handcrafted mouthpieces.
Love for the sound of the saxophone
and helping my customers is my passion.
Contact: Ron Coelho; 360-887-3807
www.saxmpc.com
CUSTOMER SERVICE
DB READER SERVICES
Send address changes to:
email: [email protected]
877-904-5299 (U.S. & Canada)
651-251-9682 (Foreign)
fax: 651-686-0366
P.O. Box 11688
St. Paul, MN 55111-0688
Please allow six weeks for your change
to become effective. When submitting
an address change, include current
DB label showing old address.
Composers, lyricists,
and melodies for
over 600 songs.
WEBSITES
DB Buyers Guide
AAM Music ......................................... 10
aammusic.com
Pacific Drums ..................................... 45
pacificdrums.com
Music Dispatch ..................................... 7
www.musicdispatch.com
ACT Music ........................................... 55
actmusic.com
Eastman Music ..................................... 2
performwithmintzer.com
New Jersey Performing Arts Center..........8
njpac.org
Albert Rivera Jazz ...............................50
albertriverajazz.com
ECM Records ....................................... 57
ecmrecords.com
P.Mauriat............................................99
pmauriatmusic.com
All Parts .............................................. 22
allparts.com
Guelph Jazz Festival ........................... 59
guelphjazzfestival.com
Peter Picket Brass ............................... 39
pickettbrass.com
Bari Woodwind ................................. 100
bariwoodwind.com
Household Ink ....................................48
householdink.com
Ranula Music .......................................51
robertsabinbass.com
Blue Note Records ...............................12
bluenote.com
Hyde Park Jazz Festival ......................66
hydeparkjazzfest.com
Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records....69
bjurecords.com
Ivo Perelman Music ............................ 65
ivoperelman.com
Brus & Knaster AB......................... 47, 52
brusoknaster.se
J Mood Records ..................................48
jmoodrecords.com
Candice Hoyes Music ...........................51
onaturquoisecloud.com
Jamey Aebersold ................................ 65
jazzbooks.com
Cannonball Music ................................. 5
cannonballmusic.com
Jazz at Lincoln Center......................... 18
jazz.org
Capri Records...................................... 16
caprirecords.com
Jazz Education Network ..................... 93
jazzednet.org
Carter Calvert Music ........................... 52
cartercalvert.com
Jody Jazz ............................................ 29
jodyjazz.com
Casio ...................................................89
casio.com
Johnny Griffith Music ........................49
johnnygriffith.com
Chef Records ....................................... 47
1111studios.net
Juilliard .............................................. 19
juilliard.edu/jazz
Chicago Sessions ................................ 47
chicagosessions.com
Karen Maynard Music ........................49
karenmaynard.com
Chicago Symphony Center ................. 67
cso.org
Kawai .................................................. 61
kawaius.com
Clearwater Jazz Holiday ..................... 76
clearwaterjazz.com
Keigo Hirakawa Music ........................49
keigohirakawa.com
Columbia College Chicago ....................4
colum.edu/music
Keri Johnsrud Music ............................51
kerijohnsrud.com
Concord Music Group .......................... 11
concordmusicgroup.com
MacSax ............................................... 32
macsax.com
Connective Records ............................ 47
fredrikkronkvist.com
Margie Baker Music.............................51
margiebakervocalist.com
CowBell Music..................................... 47
cowbellmusic.dk
Mark Solborg Music............................49
solborg.dk
Creative Perspective Music ................84
donbraden.com
Michael Griffin Music ..........................51
facebook.com/michaelgriffinmusic
William Paterson ................................ 41
wpunj.edu
D’Addario .............................................9
daddario.com
Michel Nirenberg Music .....................50
michelnirenberg.com
Yamaha .............................................. 87
usa.yamaha.com
Dot Time Records ................................69
dottimerecords.com
Monterey Jazz Festival ....................... 81
montereyjazzfestival.org
Yolk Records ....................................... 52
yolkrecords.com
Gretsch ............................................... 35
gretschdrums.com/usacustom
More Is More Records ..........................51
moreismorerecords.com
Zildjian ............................................... 95
zildjian.com
Roberto Winds .................................... 27
robertoswinds.com
Sabian................................................. 33
sabian.com/en
Sam Ash .............................................. 85
samash.com
Sher Music .......................................... 22
shermusic.com
Sony Music ..........................................17
sonymusic.com
Southport Records ..............................69
chicagosound.com
Steve Torok Music .............................. 52
stevetorok.com
STP Music ...........................................50
johntropea.com
Sunnyside Records ........................ 21, 23
sunnysiderecords.com
Terry Doc Handy Music ....................... 47
terrydochandy.com
Timbazo Productions ...........................71
timbazoproductions.com
University of Nebraska–Lincoln ......... 63
unl.edu/music
Unseen Rain Records .......................... 52
unseenrainrecords.covm
Vandoren .............................................. 3
WeAreVandoren.com
Wavetone Records .............................. 52
markegan.com
Blindfold Test
BY TED PANKEN
Jim McNeely
N
ot long after his 65th birthday, the eminent pianist-composer-arranger Jim McNeely—known for his 37-year association with the
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, his multiple Grammy-nominated albums
and his chief conductor tenures for Denmark’s DR Big band and Germany’s
HR Big Band—sat down for his first Blindfold Test.
Lee Konitz-Ohad Talmor Big Band
“June ’05” (Portology, Omnitone, 2007) Konitz, alto saxophone; Talmor, conductor, arranger; Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos.
Lee Konitz. He sounds great, with such a rich, full sound. The writing starts
with promise, and there are nice individual moments, but it gets much more
conventional in spots. It wanders around, almost feels like it ends three
times, then picks up again. I think the composer was of two minds—writing a piece that expressed their compositional ideas, but thinking, “I have to
make sure Lee can play on this.” It seemed he tried to get in as many ideas as
possible. It all could have been thinned out and shortened, including all the
background stuff behind Lee, to let the darkness of his sound predominate
more. Is it Ohad Talmor? He’s a good composer. 3 stars.
Ryan Truesdell: Gil Evans Project
“Concorde” (Lines Of Color: Live At Jazz Standard, ArtistShare, 2015) Truesdell, conductor; Steve Wilson, alto flute; Dave Pietro, alto saxophone; Donny McCaslin, flute; Tom
Christensen, oboe, English horn; Alden Banta, bassoon; Adam Unsworth, David Peel,
French horns; Augie Haas, Greg Gisbert, Mat Jodrell, trumpets; Marshall Gilkes, trombone; George Flynn, bass trombone; Marcus Rojas, tuba; Lois Martin viola; James Chirillo, guitar; Frank Kimbrough, piano; Jay Anderson, bass; Lewis Nash, drums.
[immediately] “Concorde.” Ryan Truesdell’s version of Gil’s incredible piece
of writing on John Lewis’ tune. I first heard it on the CD reissue of The
Individualism Of Gil Evans; Gil didn’t allow it on the original LP. I’m so used
to hearing Thad Jones and Phil Woods on this, it’s hard for me to separate
them from the arrangement, even though these players are excellent. Some
of Gil’s writing was rhythmically tricky, and Gil’s recordings are full of little mistakes, so it’s terrific to hear the writing so clearly from an ensemble
that’s nailing it—especially that unison trumpet line at the end. But it also
sounds weird—I miss those hanging threads on Gil’s recordings. You wrote
the charts, read it down once in the studio, rolled the tape and went to the
next one. Gil wasn’t thinking, “Maybe 30 years from now someone will want
to study this in a school.” 5 stars.
Vince Mendoza
“Poem Of The Moon” (Nights On Earth, Horizontal, 2011) John Abercrombie, guitar; Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet; Kenny Werner, piano; Christian McBride, bass; Greg
Hutchinson, drums; Jim Walker, flute; Maria Dickstein, harp; members of the Metropole
Orkestra, strings.
I liked that a lot. It didn’t pretend to be more than it was—nicely restrained in
a beautiful way. I loved the ending—very to the point. I loved the shape. I
can’t identify the trumpet player, who sounded good. John Abercrombie on
guitar? If it’s John with strings, it’s probably Vince Mendoza, one of my favorite composer-arrangers. I’ve learned a lot from Vince over the years. Probably
Peter Erskine on drums. 5 stars.
Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra
“On The Corner Of Malecón And Bourbon” (The Offense Of The Drum, Motéma, 2014)
Arturo O’Farrill, piano; Ivan Renta, Peter Brainin, tenor saxophones; Bobby Porcelli, David DeJesus, alto saxophones; Jason Marshall, saxophones; Seneca Black, Jim Seeley,
John Bailey, Jonathan Powell, trumpets; Tokunori Kajiwara, Rafi Malkiel, Frank Cohen,
trombones; Earl McIntyre, bass trombone; Gregg August, bass; Vince Cherico, drums;
Roland Guerrero, congas; Joe Gonzalez, bongos.
Fun to listen to, though the beginning was scattered—like Don Pullen meets
the World Saxophone Quartet in a big band with a Mideastern salsa band.
When it finally settles into the groove, it sounds good—though when the
two trumpets go back and forth, one of them tries to quote “Anything You
Can Do I Can Do Better” and messes it up. The final way-up Latin section—I
guess a merengue—was burning. But the beginning detracted from the total
Jim McNeely
effect. To me, each idea was presented in a box. Something to break down the
separation to let it flow a little might have been more effective. 3 stars.
JC Sanford
“Your Word Alone” (Views From The Inside, Whirlwind, 2014) Sanford, trombone; Taylor
Haskins, Matt Holman, trumpet and flugelhorn; Dan Willis, soprano saxophone; Ben
Kono, Chris Bacas, Kenny Berger, reeds; Mark Patterson: trombone; Jeff Nelson, bass
trombone; Chris Komer, French horn; Jacob Garchik, accordion; Tom Beckham, vibraphone; Meg Okura: violin; Will Martina, cello; Aidan O’Donnell, bass; Satoshi Takeishi,
percussion.
I liked that. It built nicely. A texture would get going and then be interrupted,
but the interruptions made sense. They startled you, and then back to the
quarter-note pulse. The string players sounded very good, and they did a
good job of balancing everything. The playing was strong. 4 stars.
Wynton Marsalis and Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra
“Saturday Night Slow Drag” (All Rise, Sony Classical, 2002) Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
Wild stuff. What the orchestra does in the beginning is striking. I like the
brass writing, the way the composer uses the mutes. But the tension and
wackiness we heard in the written stuff disappears when the solos start with
just the rhythm section. It’s a fine, time-tested texture, but it’s a hole in the
middle. After the solos, this wonderful double-time brass tutti happens for a
few choruses, moving back into that vibe. 4 stars.
Alan Broadbent and the NDR Big Band
“Sonata For Swee’ Pea” (America The Beautiful, Jan Matthies Records, 2014) Broadbent, piano, composer, arranger; NDR Big Band.
Well-written. My favorite part was the coda, when the composer started to work
with ideas from the tune, which is pretty straightahead and conventional, and
built a nice shape, with nice events in the head chorus. The piano playing was
good; I liked the solo, though the flutes in the background were mixed a bit too
forward for me. I wonder if the pianist was the arranger. 3½ stars.
Maria Schneider Orchestra
“Nimbus” (The Thompson Fields, ArtistShare, 2015) Steve Wilson, Dave Pietro, Rich Perry, Donny McCaslin, Scott Robinson, saxophones and woodwinds; Tony Kadleck, Greg
Gisbert, Augie Haas, Mike Rodriguez, trumpets; Keith O’Quinn, Ryan Keberle, Marshall
Gilkes, trombones; George Flynn, bass trombone; Gary Versace, accordion; Lage Lund,
guitar; Frank Kimbrough, piano; Jay Anderson, bass; Clarence Penn, drums.
Strong stuff. Great alto playing. Sounds like the writer has a bit of Gil Evans
influence. The piano also has Gil-ish stuff happening. A very effective piece
that built well. My only reservation is that, good as the alto player [Steve
Wilson] is, at a certain point I thought it was time for him to stop and let the
ensemble take over, and then bring him back in. After a while we start to say,
“Oh, that alto is still playing; I want to hear what else is happening.” But the
alto player did a great job of shaping the solo at the end and really coming
DB
down. 4½ stars.
The “Blindfold Test” is a listening test that challenges the featured artist to discuss and identify
the music and musicians who performed on selected recordings. The artist is then asked to rate
each tune using a 5-star system. No information is given to the artist prior to the test.

- Downbeat

Transcription

Similar documents

madeleine peyroux

For inquiries: [email protected] www.kameelah.com

sachem arrowette prep camp

Dena Derose Trio Tierney Sutton Band razilian romero ng zoo

Bandyke Moving Pictures

Two Rivers EPK - Amir ElSaffar

ZOHO = Latin / Jazz with a New York vibe. www.zohomusic.com

Meshell Ndegeocello bio

Hartford Courant Calendar, March 2010

Metropolitan Hot Club is a gypsy jazz group that plays hot swing of